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BR    121    .H33    1906 

Hall,  Charles  Cuthbert,  185: 

-1908. 
Christ  and  the  human  race 


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CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 


Et  cognoscetis  veritatem,  et  VERITAS 
liberabit  vos 


CHRIST 
AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

OR 

THE  ATTITUDE  OF  JESUS  CHRIST 

TOWARD  FOREIGN  RACES 

AND  RELIGIONS 

BEING  THE 

J©illiam  2Mtien  $oMe  3lecture£ 

FOR  1906 

BY^/'" 

CHARLES  CUTHBERT  HALL,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 

PRESIDENT  OP  UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 
NEW  YORK 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

1906 


COPYRIGHT   I906  BY  CHARLES  CUTHBERT  HALL 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  December  iqob 


THE  WILLIAM  BELDEN  NOBLE  LECTURES 

This  Lectureship  was  constituted  a  perpetual  foundation 
in  Harvard  University  in  1898,  as  a  memorial  to  the  late 
William  Belden  Noble  of  Washington,  D.  C.  (Harvard, 
1885).  The  deed  of  gift  provides  that  the  lectures  shall  be 
not  less  than  six  in  number,  that  they  shall  be  delivered 
annually,  and,  if  convenient,  in  the  Phillips  Brooks  House, 
during  the  season  of  Advent.  Each  lecturer  shall  have 
ample  notice  of  his  appointment,  and  the  publication  of  each 
course  of  lectures  is  required.  The  purpose  of  the  Lecture- 
ship will  be  further  seen  in  the  following  citation  from  the 
deed  of  gift  by  which  it  was  established  :  — 

"  The  object  of  the  founder  of  the  Lectures  is  to  continue 
the  mission  of  William  Belden  Noble,  whose  supreme  desire 
it  was  to  extend  the  influence  of  Jesus  as  the  way,  the  truth, 
and  the  life  ;  to  make  known  the  meaning  of  the  words  of 
Jesus,  '  I  am  come  that  they  might  have  life,  and  that  they 
might  have  it  more  abundantly.'  In  accordance  with  the 
large  interpretation  of  the  Influence  of  Jesus  by  the  late 
Phillips  Brooks,  with  whose  religious  teaching  he  in  whose 
memory  the  Lectures  are  established  and  also  the  founder 
of  the  Lectures  were  in  deep  sympathy,  it  is  intended  that 
the  scope  of  the  Lectures  shall  be  as  wide  as  the  highest  in- 
terests of  humanity.  With  this  end  in  view,  —  the  perfection 
of  the  spiritual  man  and  the  consecration  by  the  spirit  of 
Jesus  of  every  department  of  human  character,  thought,  and 
activity,  —  the  Lectures  may  include  philosophy,  literature, 
art,  poetry,  the  natural  sciences,  political  economy,  sociology, 
ethics,  history  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  as  well  as  theology, 
and  the  more  direct  interests  of  the  religious  life.  Beyond 
a  sympathy  with  the  purpose  of  the  Lectures,  as  thus  defined, 
no  restriction  is  placed  upon  the  lecturer." 


®0 

present  ana  jfuture  Members 
of  ^artoatti  tmnibersttp 

frrtjo  styali  enter 

®i)e  Christian  spintetrj? 

in  t\)t  i&txy  Spirit  of 

3f|e$us  Ctjrtet 


PREFACE 

From  time  to  time,  in  the  history  of  the 
English-speaking  races,  it  becomes  neces- 
sary to  reopen  the  question:  What  shall 
be  the  religious  attitude  of  the  West  toward 
the  East  ?  In  the  age  of  the  Crusades,  the 
answer  was  given  in  terms  of  the  sword. 
Saul  of  Tarsus,  thinking  to  do  God  service 
by  stamping  out  the  sparks  that  Christ  had 
kindled,  was  not  more  devout  in  his  reli- 
gious hatred  than  the  Knights  Crusaders, 
who  sought  to  quench  in  blood  the  unhal- 
lowed fires  of  Islam.  In  the  age  of  the 
English  Reformation,  when  commercial 
companies  were  formed  to  compete  with 
Dutch  and  Portuguese  adventurers  in  ga- 
thering the  wealth  of  the  Spice  Archipelago 
and  the  treasures  of  the  Indies,  economic 
considerations  abroad  and  dogmatic  con- 
flicts at  home  drove  into  the  background 
questions  of  religion,  as  between  West  and 
East.  In  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century 
and  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth,  far- 


x  PREFACE 

spreading  reactions  from  the  Wesleyan  re- 
vival stirred  the  conscience  of  Great  Britain 
and  awoke  to  action  the  Christian  life  of 
New  England.  The  cry  of  the  non-Chris- 
tian world  seemed  to  ascend  into  the  ears 
of  God.  The  obligation  of  the  Church  to 
evangelize  Oriental  races  pressed  heavily 
upon  the  heart  of  English-speaking  Chris- 
tianity. It  was  apprehended  as  an  obliga- 
tion toward  the  utterly  ignorant,  debased 
and  helpless  heathen  world.  Little  was 
known  of  the  East.  Its  religions  were  as- 
sumed to  be  wholly  vile  and  foolish,  un- 
worthy of  serious  consideration, — the  vaga- 
ries of  backward  and  inferior  races.  The 
devotion  of  the  early  Protestant  mission- 
aries to  Oriental  communities  was  magni- 
ficent, and  cannot  be  depreciated  by  the  fact 
that  its  sublime  condescension  was,  in  a 
measure,  founded  on  erroneous  estimates 
of  value.  The  entire  Western  attitude 
toward  the  East  was  gravely  erroneous, 
and,  by  necessity,  communicated  itself 
somewhat  to  the  apostles  of  English  Chris- 
tianity. The  religious  assumption  was  that 
the  East  must  depend  on  the  West  for  salva- 
tion, and  that  that  salvation  could  be  re- 


PREFACE  xi 

ceived  only  by  entire  renunciation  of  its 
own  religious  inheritances.  At  that  time, 
Oriental  studies  being  yet  in  their  infancy, 
it  had  scarcely  occurred  to  Occidental 
Christians  that  the  viewless  spirit  of  God 
had  also  been  preparing  a  way  in  the 
Oriental  consciousness,  whereby  ultimately 
to  express  truths  as  yet  largely  unrealized 
in  Anglo-Saxon  religious  experience. 

Meanwhile,  we  have  passed  into  a  new 
century.  Its  religious  outlook  is  problem- 
atical. The  churches  of  the  Western  world 
certainly  have  not  attained  a  maximum 
of  religious  power.  A  general  solicitude  is 
felt  for  their  purification  in  practice,  their 
intensification  and  deepening  in  faith  and 
insight.  It  is  considered  to  be  of  vital  im- 
portance that  the  Christian  ministry  of  the 
future  shall  attract  and  win  the  service  of 
the  strongest,  the  purest,  the  most  chival- 
rous men.  This  good  result  is  not  probable 
unless  the  vision  suggested  to  such  minds 
by  the  Christian  ministry  be  at  least  as 
broad  and  winsome  as  that  offered  by 
other  social  enterprises  of  the  altruistic  age. 
That  it  is,  in  fact,  more  broad  and  winsome 
than  any  of  these  I  believe,  and,  in  these 


xii  PREFACE 

lectures,  have  attempted  to  show.  Once 
more  have  the  English-speaking  races 
reached  a  point  where  it  becomes  necessary 
to  reopen  the  question :  What  shall  be  the 
religious  attitude  of  the  West  toward  the 
East?  The  fascination  of  the  present 
answer  consists  in  combining  the  most  ad- 
vanced position  reached  by  modern  know- 
ledge of  the  Oriental  world,  with  a  simple 
restatement  of  the  attitude  of  Jesus  Christ 
toward  the  human  race.  Never  was  there 
an  age,  since  Christ  Himself  was  on  earth 
in  visible  form,  when  the  simple  univer- 
sality of  His  love  for  mankind  was  more 
clearly  understood  or  more  deeply  felt. 
And  never  has  there  been  an  age  in  which 
the  West  has  apprehended  so  clearly,  al- 
though as  yet  inadequately,  the  presence 
in  the  soul  of  the  East  of  unmeasured  re- 
serves of  power,  one  day  to  be  liberated,  in 
blessing  or  in  peril,  upon  the  rest  of  the 
world.  By  men  choosing  public  affairs  as 
their  life-work,  the  Christian  ministry  must 
henceforth  be  regarded  in  its  large  relation 
to  the  world.  In  these  lectures  I  have  at- 
tempted so  to  regard  it;  believing  that  such 
a  view  of  the  vocation  immediately  insti- 


PREFACE  xiii 

tuted  by  Jesus  Christ  qualifies  one  to  be- 
hold the  dignity  and  importance  of  that 
vocation  and  to  fulfill  it  more  worthily  at 
home  and  abroad. 

As  we  get  a  broad  view  of  the  world,  this 
question  arises  in  thoughtful  minds :  What 
is  our  relation,  as  Christian  men  of  liberal 
education,  to  the  non-Christian  religions, 
and  especially  to  those  to  whom  those  re- 
ligions are  precious  ?  It  is  a  question  that 
has  to  do  with  our  own  religious  efficiency, 
as  much,  perhaps,  as  with  the  welfare  of 
the  world.  Can  the  faith  of  a  Christian  be 
made  more  real,  intelligent,  and  effective 
by  gaining  knowledge  of  the  lines,  outside 
of  Christian  thinking,  on  which  the  world 
is  seeking  after  God  ?  Can  we,  who  have 
the  Christian  faith,  do  better  service  to  our 
brothers  outside  of  the  Christian  lines,  by 
attempting  to  understand  the  things  that 
are  precious  to  them,  and  the  ways  in  which 
they  are  trying  to  meet  the  cravings  of  the 
religious  nature,  and  to  answer  the  im- 
portant questionings  of  the  soul  ?  The  fact 
that  such  inquiries  seem  to  us  natural  and 
timely  marks  an  immense  advance  in  en- 
lightenment, as  well  as  in  appreciation  of 


xiv  PREFACE 

the  mind  and  temper  of  Jesus  Christ.  The 
time  was  when  such  inquiries  would  have 
been  reckoned  anti-Christian;  when  the 
beliefs  of  the  non-Christian  world  were 
scorned  by  Christians  as  unworthy  of  con- 
sideration, or  were  branded  as  wholly 
instigated  by  the  devil  and  produced  by 
devilish  imaginations.  The  time  may  be 
near  at  hand,  when  scarcely  anything  shall 
seem  so  interesting,  so  rational,  so  neces- 
sary for  Christians  to  know,  for  the  balan- 
cing of  their  own  faith  and  for  the  intelli- 
gent presentation  of  Christ  to  the  Oriental 
world,  as  the  real  meanings  and  the  real 
religious  values  that  lie  in  the  substance  of 
faiths  older  than  Christianity,  yet  still  ex- 
isting in  power  two  thousand  years  after 
Christ.  The  time  may  be  near  when  we 
shall  ask  if  those  faiths  could  so  long  have 
survived  Christ's  awful  surrender  on  the 
Cross  and  Christ's  spiritual  influence  in  the 
world,  if  at  the  bottom  of  them  there  are 
not  elemental  operations  of  the  Spirit  and 
elemental  portions  of  truth,  which  God 
purposes  to  use  for  His  glory. 

The  question  to  be  discussed  in  these 
lectures  is  chiefly  a  question  of  mental  at- 


PREFACE  xr 

titude :  How  shall  a  Christian  man  of  cul- 
ture reach  an  intellectual  and  religious 
position  with  relation  to  non-Christian  re- 
ligions, which  shall  be  justified  by  the  pre- 
sent state  of  knowledge,  while  in  full  accord 
with  the  example  and  spirit  of  Christ? 
The  answer  to  this  question  cannot  be 
an  answer  of  prejudice,  or  of  unreasoning 
impulse.  One  must  look  backward,  even 
to  the  Judaism  out  of  which  Christianity 
came,  and  see  how  the  plan  of  God  has 
unfolded  from  a  time  when  the  very  life 
of  truth  seemed  to  depend  on  uncompro- 
mising hatred  of  the  faiths  of  others,  to 
this  present  time  when  the  life  and  victory 
of  truth  seem  to  require  the  most  careful 
study  of  non-Christian  faiths,  to  see  how 
much  in  them  may  be  of  God,  breathed 
into  the  Oriental  races  by  His  Spirit,  mak- 
ing a  basis  on  which  the  chief  corner- 
stone, which  is  Christ,  can  be  laid;  creat- 
ing a  religious  consciousness  into  which  the 
distinctive  essence  of  Christianity  can  be 
assimilated.  If  young  men  of  culture  and 
earnestness  in  our  American  universities 
will  break  from  the  bonds  of  race  prejudice, 
ignore  traditional  Anglo-Saxon  notions  of 


xvi  PREFACE 

superiority,  and  face  the  world  of  to-day 
in  the  spirit  of  the  all-encompassing  human- 
ism of  the  heart  of  Jesus  Christ,  they  will 
find  in  the  Christian  ministry,  whether  at 
home  or  abroad,  a  vocation  great  enough 
to  satisfy  the  loftiest  ambitions  and  to  em- 
ploy the  most  statesmanlike  powers.  If 
their  life-work  in  the  ministry  be  at  home, 
they  will  learn  that  all  men  possessing  this 
broader  vision  are  needed  to  arouse  the 
Church  from  routine,  to  lift  it  above  con- 
troversy, to  revive  its  apostolic  spirit.  And 
if,  as  may  well  be  desired,  for  our  strongest 
men,  the  call  of  the  East  shall  come  to  them, 
they  will  find,  as  they  answer  that  call, 
how  much  vaster  than  they  dreamed  is  the 
scope  of  the  religion  of  the  Son  of  Man; 
how  universal,  how  flexible,  how  Oriental, 
as  well  as  Occidental,  is  the  faith  which 
once  they  held  provincially  as  the  religion 
of  the  West.  They  will  read,  as  it  were  in 
a  new  language  of  race  significance,  the 
Gospel  of  the  Incarnation  and  the  Gospel 
of  the  Divine  Sacrifice.  Bethlehem,  Cal- 
vary, the  garden  of  the  resurrection,  the 
hill  of  Bethany,  long  dimmed  by  the  earth- 
born  mists  of  selfish,  partial,  sectarian  in- 


PREFACE  xvii 

terpretation,  will  stand  forth  in  new  and 
unimagined  glory,  "in  sunny  outline,  brave 
and  clear." 

And  this  also :  they  will  learn  how  the 
Spirit  of  the  living  God  is  now  at  work, 
in  the  heart  of  all  the  Oriental  religions, 
preparing  a  way  through  darkness  for  the 
rising  of  the  Sun  of  Righteousness,  with 
healing  in  His  wings.  They  will  begin  to 
measure  and  comprehend  those  spiritual 
yearnings  with  which  the  East  is  filled; 
yearnings  that  admit  of  but  one  interpre- 
tation, that  they  are  mysterious  movements 
of  God  Himself,  preparing  the  Eastern 
religious  consciousness  to  advance  through 
pantheism  into  theism,  and  through  theism 
into  the  Christian  heritage  and  the  Chris- 
tian peace. 

Charles  Cuthbert  Hall. 

Synton,  Westport  Point,  Massachusetts. 
1  July,  1906. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.   Jesus  Christ  and  World-Sympathy     ....  1 

II.   The  Larger  Meaning  of  the  Incarnation  .    .  49 

III.  The  Essential  Unity  of  the  Human  Race  .    .  90 

IV.  Temperamental  Contrasts  between  East  and 

West 134 

V.    Religious  Insight  and  Experience  outside  of 

Christianity 179 

VI.   Christian  Missions  and  the  Modern  World  .  233 


CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN 
RACE 


LECTURE    I 
JESUS  CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY 

Professor  Allen,  in  "The  Life  and  Let- 
ters of  Phillips  Brooks,"  describes  the 
William  Belden  Noble  Lectureship  as 
"a  special  endowment,  connected  with 
[Phillips  Brooks  House]  a  foundation  for 
perpetuating  the  influence  of  Jesus,  as 
Phillips  Brooks  proclaimed  it,  in  all  the 
comprehensiveness  of  its  scope."  The 
founder  of  the  Lectureship  informs  us,  in 
her  deed  of  gift,  that  it  was  the  mission 
and  supreme  desire  of  William  Belden 
Noble  to  extend  the  influence  of  Jesus  as 
the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life ;  to  make 
known  the  meaning  of  the  words  of  Jesus, 
"I  came  that  they  may  have  life,  and 
may  have  it  abundantly."  I  cannot  ex- 
pect to  add  anything  to  those  aspects  of 


2  CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

thought  and  life  that  have  been  discussed 
by  my  predecessors.  It  is  my  hope  to 
supplement  what  they  have  done  by  an 
attempt  to  present  the  influence  and  spirit 
of  Jesus  Christ  in  relation  to  a  field  of  ex- 
perience not  particularly  considered  in  the 
foregoing  courses  of  Noble  Lectures.  My 
subject  is:  "The  Attitude  of  Jesus  Christ 
toward  Foreign  Races  and  Religions."  I 
shall  undertake  to  show  that  that  attitude 
was  impartial,  without  prejudice,  unham- 
pered by  traditional  limitations,  cosmopol- 
itan. A  majestic  simplicity  of  intention 
toward  the  world  reflected  itself  in  a  ma- 
jestic indifference  toward  distinctions  of 
race  and  religion.  Knowing  what  was  in 
man,  undeceived  by  the  pretenses  of  ortho- 
doxy, unrepelled  by  the  aberrations  of 
paganism,  steadfastly  set  to  give  His  life  for 
the  life  of  the  world,  the  world-sympathy 
of  the  mind  of  Christ  was  absolute. 

No  experience  in  the  life  of  Phillips 
Brooks  more  deeply  interested  him  than 
did  his  visit  to  India  in  the  cold  season  of 
1882-1883.  The  mystery  of  the  Oriental 
world  broke  upon  him  with  peculiar  force. 
At  times  he  seemed  to  see  deeply  into  the 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY  3 

heart  of  the  East  and  to  apprehend  it  with- 
out experiencing  those  involuntary  repul- 
sions that  have  limited  most  Western 
observers.  At  other  times  he  was  baffled 
by  theories  of  being  and  of  conduct  per- 
vading Oriental  society  that,  to  his  ethical 
sense,  seemed  inadmissible  and  grotesque. 
His  letters  from  India  are  a  curiously 
blended  network  of  impressions.  But,  as 
years  passed,  and  that  incomparable  expe- 
rience fell  into  place  in  the  perspective  of 
his  religious  thinking,  he  learned  to  organ- 
ize his  contradictory  judgments  of  the 
Oriental  consciousness  under  the  all-em- 
bracing breadth  of  the  mind  of  Christ. 
Proof  of  this  is  found  in  a  letter  written 
five  years  after  his  return  from  India  to 
the  Kev.  G.  A.  Lefroy,  then  a  member 
of  the  Cambridge  Mission  at  Delhi,  now 
the  Anglican  Bishop  of  Lahore  (a  most 
gallant  and  large-minded  Churchman, 
whom  I  have  had  the  honor  to  meet  in 
the  Pan  jab) .  Writing  from  North  Andover 
in  July,  1888,  Phillips  Brooks  says:  "My 
dear  Mr.  Lefroy:  That  you  in  your  good 
work  should  care  anything  about  my  books 
touches  me  very  much  indeed.    They  were 


4  CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

written  for  my  people  here,  and  nothing 
was  farther  from  my  thought  than  that 
they  should  be  read  by  the  Jamna  and  the 
Ganges.  But  how  simple  it  all  grows  as 
we  grow  older !  The  whole  of  what  we 
personally  have  to  live  and  what  we  go  out 
to  preach  is  loyalty  to  Christ.  It  is  nothing 
but  that.  All  truth  regarding  Christ  and 
all  duty  toward  His  brethren  is  involved 
in  that  and  flows  out  from  it.  To  teach 
Him  to  any  one  who  never  heard  of  Him 
is  to  bring  a  soul  into  the  sight  of  Him 
and  His  unspeakable  friendship.  To  grow 
stronger  and  better  and  braver  ourselves 
is  to  draw  nearer  to  Him  and  to  be  more 
absolutely  His.  And  this  seems  to  take 
off  the  burden  of  life  without  lessening  its 
duties.  He  is  behind  all  our  work.  It  is 
all  His  before  it  is  ours  and  after  it  is  ours. 
We  have  only  to  do  our  duty  in  our  little 
place,  and  leave  the  great  results  to  Him. 
We  are  neither  impatient  nor  reluctant  at 
the  thought  of  the  day  when  we  shall 
have  finished  here  and  go  to  higher  work. 
But  dear  me  !  what  right  have  I  to  say 
all  this  to  you,  who  know  it  so  much  bet- 
ter, who  are  putting  it  so  constantly  and 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY         5 

richly  into  your  life  and  work?  I  grow 
stronger  for  Boston  when  I  think  of 
Delhi !  " 

Between,  rather  than  on,  the  lines  of 
this  letter  one  reads  that  which,  in  this,  as 
in  every  other  sphere  of  thinking,  was  the 
final  conclusion  of  Phillips  Brooks ;  namely, 
the  determining  authority  of  the  attitude 
of  the  mind  of  Christ  toward  all  men  and 
all  races  of  men.  He  conceived  of  Christ's 
knowledge  of  the  human  heart  as  absolute, 
and  of  Christ's  attitude  toward  the  total 
religious  experience  of  the  world  as  the 
ultimate  example  to  all  His  disciples.  If  I 
can,  although  in  the  most  distant  and  hum- 
ble way,  treat  my  subject  in  the  temper 
of  Brooks's  letter  to  Lefroy,  and  thereby 
encourage  young  members  of  the  Univer- 
sity to  consider  the  Christian  ministry  in 
the  larger  relations  here  suggested,  I  shall 
thank  God,  and  shall  feel  that  the  spirit 
and  purpose  of  this  Lectureship  have  not 
wholly  been  misapprehended. 

The  problem  that  I  have  set  myself  in 
these  Lectures  is  the  problem  of  a  mental 
attitude.  By  this  I  mean  a  deliberate  and 
reasoned   point   of  view   as   distinguished 


.6  CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

from  the  casual  or  involuntary  movements 
of  impulse  and  prejudice.  The  scientific 
significance  of  a  reasoned  mental  attitude 
has  been  established  by  psychologists  in 
various  fields.  The  influence  of  the  mind 
over  itself,  acquired  by  deliberate  attitude; 
the  influence  of  the  mind  over  the  body; 
the  influence  of  one  mind  over  another  — 
now  begins  to  be  understood.  The  key  to 
some  of  life's  most  perplexing  phenomena 
will  be  found  when  the  scientific  signifi- 
cance of  mental  attitude,  already  estab- 
lished, shall  have  been  worked  out  to  its 
remotest  conclusions.  It  is  with  the  ethi- 
cal significance  of  mental  attitude  that  I 
am  concerned  in  these  Lectures.  And 
this  within  a  particular  field,  the  field  of 
religious  and  racial  diversity.  How  shall 
we  order  the  mind,  adjust  the  judgment, 
develop  the  affections  with  reference  to 
races  and  religions  not  our  own?  That 
this  is  a  question  of  practical  importance 
will  be  denied  only  by  those  for  whom 
races  and  religions  other  than  their  own 
are  matters  without  significance.  It  is 
most  charitable  to  believe  that  lack  of 
knowledge    is    the    chief    cause    of    this 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY         7 

extreme  localization  of  thought.  No  nor- 
mal mind  that,  by  reading  or  travel,  has 
gained  a  view  of  the  historical  develop- 
ment of  races,  and  of  the  meaning  and 
value  of  religion  to  those  races,  can  retain 
an  undisturbed  indifference  to  the  question 
of  one's  own  mental  attitude  toward  foreign 
peoples  and  their  faiths.  Undoubtedly 
we  do  find  perfect  indifference  on  the  part 
of  some  to  all  that  lies  outside  the  small 
circle  of  personal  experience  in  matters  of 
nationality  and  belief;  minds  as  completely 
sequestered  in  their  own  provincialism, 
as  completely  unmoved  by  the  progress 
or  decline  of  the  larger  humanity,  as  if 
there  was  no  creation  groaning  and  travail- 
ing in  pain,  and  no  world-soul  yearning 
for  the  Absolute.  In  charity  I  attribute 
to  ignorance  an  indifference  which,  were 
it  coupled  with  knowledge,  must  be  pro- 
nounced stolid  and  unfraternal.  That  un- 
disturbed indifference  is,  in  itself,  a  men- 
tal attitude  of  high  psychological  interest 
to  one  who  studies  the  causes  that  have 
imparted  a  tragic  tone  to  the  racial  and 
religious  history  of  mankind.  To  be  com- 
pletely absorbed  in  one's  own  convictions 


8  CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

and  beliefs;  to  have  no  room  in  the  mind 
for  consideration  of  the  convictions  of 
others;  to  press  the  local  into  the  fore- 
ground so  that  one  cannot  see  beyond  it 
that  field  of  religious  inquiry  on  which 
races  have  met,  grappled,  parted  or  merged, 
is  abnormal  provincialism.  In  so  far  as  it 
is  found  within  Christian  lines,  it  contra- 
dicts the  mental  attitude  of  Him  to  whom 
it  professes  strenuous  allegiance,  but  to 
whom,  in  fact,  nothing  in  the  soul  of  hu- 
manity appealed  in  vain.  No  contradic- 
tion of  the  mind  of  Christ  can  be  harmless. 
Persecution  of  the  disciples  of  another  faith 
is  not  the  only  method  of  tyranny.  To  be 
ignored  may  be  more  bitter  than  to  be  per- 
secuted. 

When  the  Western  mind,  passing  from 
indifference  to  attention,  has  surveyed  the 
spirit  and  beliefs  of  Eastern  races,  it  has 
not  been  prone  to  take  on  attitudes  in 
correspondence  with  the  mind  of  Christ. 
Repugnance  has  been  a  frequent  substitute 
for  ignorance;  hostility  for  apathy.  The 
most  sombre  line  running  through  history 
is  the  line  of  man's  religious  antagonisms, 
hatreds,  and  conflicts.     But  the  student  of 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY         9 

the  philosophy  of  history  sees  that  this 
element,  regrettable  in  itself,  cannot  be 
waved  aside  as  a  mere  ugly  ghost  haunting 
the  progress  of  humanity.  To  denounce 
religious  hostilities  as,  at  all  times,  proofs 
of  unmitigated  evil  and  blindness  in  the 
heart  of  man,  is  to  pass  the  most  super- 
ficial and  unreflecting  judgment  upon  the 
evolution  of  the  race,  to  take  no  account  of 
the  nature  of  moral  conviction,  to  forget 
the  urgency  of  conscience,  to  call  evil  good 
and  good  evil.  Whatever  the  future  atti- 
tude of  religious  inquiry  may  be,  the  best 
hopes  of  the  world  depend  on  principles 
that  have  been  evolved  through  painful 
separation  of  the  truth  from  error,  and 
established  after  strife  and  sacrifice. 

The  most  signal  illustration  of  this  is 
the  development  of  the  religion  of  Israel. 
One  does  not  see  how  the  crudeness  of 
primitive  Judaism  could  have  matured 
into  the  religious  and  ethical  splendor  of 
the  later  prophets,  had  the  nation  remained 
in  an  alliance  of  love  with  its  environment. 
It  was  by  separation,  by  the  sword,  by 
destruction  of  opposing  interests,  by  abhor- 
rence of  the  gods  of  the  nations,  that  the 


10        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

root  of  Semitic  monotheism,  the  worship  of 
a  Holy  God,  sprang  from  the  dry  ground 
into  the  fruitful  tree  of  salvation.  Into 
Christianity  passed,  by  a  species  of  heredi- 
tary necessity,  many  of  these  Semitic  pre- 
possessions, giving  it  at  times  the  aspect 
of  Jewish  separateness.  It  could  not  have 
been  otherwise,  in  the  nature  of  the  case. 
Jesus  Himself  recognized  it  and  said,  "I 
send  you  forth  as  sheep  in  the  midst  of 
wolves."1  "If  the  world  hateth  you,  ye 
know  that  it  hath  hated  Me  before  it  hated 
you."2  This  separateness  was  emphasized 
by  the  persecution  of  Christians  in  the 
Roman  era.  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
political  ground  of  those  persecutions,  as 
the  suppression  of  a  revolutionary  tendency, 
it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  the  conflict  was 
in  fact  a  conflict  of  religions;  the  protest 
of  a  social  order  accustomed  to  gods  and 
their  symbols  against  a  religion  of  the  Spirit, 
a  transforming  Christ  enthroned  within  the 
heart.  This  was  inevitable.  It  was  also 
desirable  for  the  world's  sake.  It  was  an 
essential  step  in  the  evolutionary  order ;  the 
birth-throe  of  a  nobler  human  conscious- 

1  Matt.  x.  16.  2  John  xv.  18. 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY       11 

ness.  It  was  in  accord  with  the  mind  of 
Christ;  the  natural  sequence  of  His  Cross 
and  Passion. 

At  length  the  world-scene  changed  in 
favor  of  Christianity.  The  little  flock, 
despised  and  rejected  of  men,  came  to  its 
own.  Christian  Emperors  and  Popes, 
intrenched  in  power,  could  dictate  terms 
to  Pagans.  Then  developed  intolerance, 
the  Christian  perversion  of  the  ancient 
separateness  of  Israel.  The  separateness 
of  Israel  was  essential,  in  its  time,  to  the 
safeguarding  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
The  growth  of  an  ethical  God-conscious- 
ness in  humanity,  a  conception  of  God  as 
righteousness,  and  of  life  as  obedience, 
could  not  be  had  save  by  the  segregation  of 
a  people,  which,  for  its  own  education  in 
religious  ideals,  should  lay  the  unpitying 
axe  at  the  root  of  idolatry.  To  the  eye 
that  sees  straight  down  the  perspective  of 
time,  there  is  nothing  inconsistent  with  a 
God  of  love,  in  Israel's  fierce  antagonism 
of  other  faiths.  To  the  ear  that  hears 
aright  the  movement  of  God's  plan  through 
the  ages,  there  is  no  discord  in  Israel's 
grand  contempt  for  idols  and  their  devotees. 


12        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

There  is  the  sound  of  proud  and  terrible 
laughter  in  their  psalmody: — 

"  The  idols  of  the  nations  are  silver  and  gold, 
The  work  of  men's  hands. 
They  have  mouths,  but  they  speak  not; 
Eyes  have  they,  but  they  see  not; 
They  have  ears,  but  they  hear  not; 
Neither  is  there  any  breath  in  their  mouths. 
They  that  make  them  shall  be  like  unto  them; 
Yea,  every  one  that  trusteth  in  them."  * 

In  this  there  is  no  offense  against  the  true 
spirit  of  religion,  save  the  offense  of  the 
plowshare,  which  must  tear  the  clods  of 
the  valley  that  rain  and  sunshine  and  the 
joy  of  harvests  may  work  in  their  order. 
The  attitude  of  Israel  toward  other  races 
and  religions,  whatever  it  may  seem  to 
be  in  the  mind  of  a  proud,  self-righteous 
Pharisee,  was,  in  the  Divine  intention, 
inclusive  more  than  exclusive.  The  segre- 
gation of  Israel  was  in  order  to  larger  ser- 
vice for  the  world.  Israel  was  trained  aloof 
from  the  world,  that  Israel  might  draw 
the  world  from  idols  to  the  Living  God. 
Through  every  variation  of  splendid  utter- 
ance, the  prophets  declare  the  world  mis- 

1  Psalm  cxxxv.  15-18. 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY        13 

sion  of  Israel  as  the  servant  of  Jehovah. 
"The  people  which  I  formed  for  Myself, 
they  shall  set  forth  My  praise."  l  "  Thus 
saith  the  Lord,  the  labour  of  Egypt,  and 
the  merchandise  of  Ethiopia,  and  the  Sa- 
beans,  men  of  stature,  shall  come  over  unto 
thee,  and  they  shall  be  thine ;  they  shall  go 
after  thee;  in  chains  they  shall  come  over: 
and  they  shall  fall  down  unto  thee,  they 
shall  make  supplication  unto  thee,  saying, 
Surely  God  is  in  thee;  and  there  is  none 
else,  there  is  no  God."  2  "Behold,  My  ser- 
vant shall  deal  wisely,  he  shall  be  exalted 
and  lifted  up,  and  shall  be  very  high.  So 
shall  he  sprinkle  many  nations ;  kings  shall 
shut  their  mouths  at  him:  for  that  which 
had  not  been  told  them  shall  they  see; 
and  that  which  they  had  not  heard  shall 
they  understand."3  In  all  this  there  was 
no  offense ;  not  even  in  the  proud  and  ter- 
rible laughter  at  the  impotence  of  idols, 
matched  against  the  strong  initiative  of  a 
living  Jehovah.  The  offense  came  when 
Jewish  separatism  was  carried  over  into 
Christian  hatred  of  the  East,  contrary  to 
the  example  or  spirit  of  Christ,  to   find 

1  Is.  xliii.  21.  2  Is.  xlv.  14.  3  Is.  lii.  13, 15. 


14        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

ghastly  resurrection  in  the  forms  of  Chris- 
tian intolerance ;  in  the  ferocities  of  the  Cru- 
sades; in  the  rancorous  hate  poured  forth 
by  Christians  upon  Moslems;  in  the  bloody 
reprisals  extorted  by  Christian  powers  from 
the  Jews  in  Europe;  in  the  inhumanities 
of  the  Inquisition,  both  in  Europe  and  the 
Orient;  in  every  modern  recrudescence  of 
the  old  spirit  of  intolerance  and  exclusion. 

The  modern  world  has  come,  by  various 
lines  of  approach,  into  new  relations  with 
the  East.  The  result  is  greatly  increased 
knowledge  of  facts,  and  partial  disap- 
pearance (I  would  better  say  partial  con- 
cealment) of  former  inclination  to  blind 
and  brutal  antagonism.  The  causes  of 
the  changed  attitude  may  be  traced.  Self- 
interest  is  one  of  them.  The  East  is  the 
most  important  commercial  asset  of  the 
West,  and  therefore,  as  we  are  learning  to 
our  cost,  is  not  to  be  trampled  under  foot 
to  any  extent  that  would  damage  trade. 
Nor  can  the  modern  East  be  treated  as  a 
negligible  quantity  in  the  councils  of  na- 
tions. The  voice  of  the  East  speaks  with 
authority,  and  may  speak  yet  more  sternly. 
There  is  a  new  East,  on  whose  shield  might 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY       15 

be  inscribed  a  legend  once  supposed  to 
belong  exclusively  west  of  Aden, —  "Nemo 
me  impune  laces  sit." 

Growth  of  Western  culture  accounts  in 
part  for  the  changed  attitude  toward  the 
East.  When  the  Indian  Institute  was 
founded  at  Oxford,  side  by  side  with  the 
Bodleian  Library,  it  epitomized  the  broad- 
ening of  the  Western  mind.  That  building 
is  more  than  a  diplomatic  concession  to 
India.  It  stands  for  what  became  apparent 
when  Professor  Max  Muller  produced  his 
edition  of  "The  Sacred  Books  of  the  East," 
the  necessary  inclusion  of  Eastern  thought 
in  any  future  study  of  the  philosophy  and 
history  of  religion. 

Growth  of  social  ethics  is  another  modi- 
fying cause.  Conscience  wakes  at  last  in 
communities  and  nations.  The  still  small 
voice  cannot  be  stifled  forever.  Under  the 
noises  of  war  and  trade  and  appeals  to 
race  prejudice,  it  makes  itself  heard  in 
sober  hearts :  "  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ?  " 
The  present  attitude  of  the  West  toward 
the  East  may  be  unsatisfactory,  yet  it  has 
this  to  commend  it :  by  no  possibility  could 
we  go  back  to  the  attitude  of  one  hundred 


16        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

years  ago.  The  conscience  of  America, 
I  trust  that  I  may  also  say  of  Europe,  at 
last  is  stirred. 

I  have  cited  self-interest,  culture,  and 
growth  of  social  ethics  as  causes  of  the 
partial  disappearance  of  former  inclination 
to  blind  and  brutal  antagonism,  in  esti- 
mating races  and  religions  not  our  own. 
What  prevailing  mental  attitudes  may  be 
said  thus  far  to  have  supplanted  the  old 
brutality  ?  For  the  most  part  they  are  not, 
I  fear,  such  as  can  be  described  in  terms 
of  the  mind  of  Christ.  Encouraging 
though  they  may  be  to  those  who  believe 
that  the  essential  unity  of  the  human  race 
must  sooner  or  later  prove  itself,  they 
accord  but  indifferently  with  the  unquali- 
fied breadth  and  comprehensiveness  of  that 
Divine  Mind.  They  may  be  described  by 
the  terms  "passive  curiosity"  and  "con- 
temptuous interest." 

Curiosity  is  the  desire  to  see  or  learn 
something  new,  strange,  hitherto  unknown. 
Passive  curiosity  is  the  cultivation  of  that 
desire,  not  for  the  sake  of  some  construc- 
tive end  lying  outside  one's  self,  but  for  the 
sake  of  the  experience    (usually  pleasant 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY        17 

and  entertaining)  of  receiving  impressions 
produced  by  that  which  is  novel.  Passive 
curiosity  is  the  mental  attitude  of  the 
traveler  in  pursuit  of  pleasure.  He  wearies 
of  the  beaten  paths,  because  they  lead 
among  familiar  objects  and  produce  sensa- 
tions dulled  by  repetition.  He  travels  far- 
ther and  farther  afield,  hoping  for  stimu- 
lating impressions  from  the  unfamiliar. 
The  novelties  of  religion  are  not  the  least 
fruitful  sources  of  his  entertainment.  Hav- 
ing exhausted  the  picturesqueness  of  the 
Roman  Mass  in  Italian  sanctuaries,  he 
steers  his  pleasure  bark  through  the  Red 
Sea,  and  makes  for  the  Orient,  that  he  may 
be  amused  at  the  Cow  Temple  in  Benares, 
or  diverted  at  the  Shrine  of  the  Sacred 
Tooth  in  Ceylon.  He  is  pleased  by  the 
romantic  sound  of  the  bronze  bell  among 
the  cryptomarias  of  Nikko,  and  passes 
many  a  light-hearted  hour  in  the  priestly 
houses  of  pleasure  within  the  precincts  of 
Asakasa.  He  wanders  through  throngs 
of  Oriental  worshipers  with  a  species  of 
friendly  gratitude  to  those  whose  curious 
customs  are  more  diverting  than  a  drama. 
He  buys  their  temple  instruments,  their 


?18        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

idols,  their  sacred  books,  as  treasured 
souvenirs  of  his  holiday-making.  He 
returns  to  his  home  and  his  Church  to 
forget  all  that  he  has  seen,  save  as  its 
beguiling  memories  revive  to  brighten  fes- 
tive hours,  or  its  bizarre  contrasts  occur 
to  him  at  his  own  worship,  and  he  thanks 
God  that  he  is  not  as  other  men  are.  Of 
many  who  thus  glance  with  the  eye  of 
passive  curiosity  on  mosque  and  temple 
and  shrine  of  the  East,  it  may  be  said  that 
it  never  occurs  to  them  to  take  seriously 
what  they  have  seen  and  heard;  to  think 
of  it,  not  as  a  panorama  of  novelties,  but 
as  a  part  of  the  spiritual  yearning  of  the 
world;  the  same,  in  essence,  with  that  in 
ourselves  which  makes  life  sacred  and 
aspiration  Divine.  It  is  suggestive,  to 
reflect  how  largely  this  spirit  of  passive 
curiosity  toward  foreign  races  and  their 
faiths  has  supplanted  the  old  antagonism 
that  sprang  from  the  relative  ignorance  of 
a  less  traveled  age.  It  has  grown  with  the 
growth  of  general  culture,  with  the  preva- 
lence of  cosmopolitan  intercourse,  with  the 
liberalism  of  an  aesthetic  epoch.  It  must 
also  be  said  that  the  absence  of  serious  pur- 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY        19 

pose  from  many  of  the  sight-seeing  invaders 
of  the  East  shows  how  cosmopolitanism  and 
sestheticism  may  have  produced  in  modern 
Christianity  profound  and  dangerous  reac- 
tions from  the  first  solicitudes  of  the  follow- 
ers of  Christ.  When  St.  Paul  visited  Athens, 
he  was  unable  to  regard  the  forms  of  Greek 
nature  worship  with  the  eye  of  passive  curi- 
osity. "  His  spirit  was  provoked  within  him, 
as  he  beheld  the  city  full  of  idols  ;" 1  —  pro- 
voked, not  with  antagonism,  alike  unhal- 
lowed and  uncultured,  that  travestied  the 
Christian  orthodoxy  of  a  later  age;  but 
provoked  with  sympathies  the  most  mag- 
nanimous, comprehending,  fraternal.  He 
who  had  seen  for  himself,  in  the  glory  of 
Divine  light,  a  vision  of  the  Ideal,  who 
had  heard  a  call  from  the  spiritual  heights, 
yearned  for  his  brothers,  the  common  off- 
spring of  God,  that  they  also  might  attain. 
A  half-contemptuous,  scientific  interest 
in  foreign  races  and  religions  is  another 
conventional  attitude  of  the  Western  mind. 
It  differs  from  passive  curiosity,  which,  as 
has  been  pointed  out,  is  the  search  for  the 
new  in  order  to  the  experience  of  sensations 

1  Acts  xvii.  16. 


20        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

produced  by  novelty.  There  is  a  scholarly 
interest  in  alien  religions,  maintained  by 
a  zest  for  knowledge,  in  order  to  scien- 
tific generalization.  From  this  has  come 
a  relatively  new  university  discipline;  the 
study  of  the  philosophy  and  history  of 
religion.  So  long  as  this  discipline  is  kept 
upon  the  high  levels  of  science,  and  pro- 
tected from  the  influence  of  prejudice  and 
contemptuous  disparagement,  it  discharges 
a  service  of  value.  It  collects,  reports,  and 
coordinates  the  facts  in  the  religious  his- 
tory of  the  race.  It  divides  the  veil  of 
ignorance  whereby  the  East  has  been  hid- 
den from  the  West,  and  leads  the  mind 
into  the  presence  of  the  Oriental  con- 
sciousness. The  unbiased  historian  and 
analyst  of  religion  may  do  as  much  as  the 
diplomatist  to  promote  the  entente  cordial 
of  races.  He  may  draw  the  scattered 
brethren  of  humanity  together,  assist  each 
to  look  into  the  heart  of  the  other,  and 
make  mutually  intelligible  the  differing 
ways  in  which  each  has  wrought  at  the 
fundamental  problems  of  the  soul.  There 
are  honored  names,  both  of  the  dead  and 
the    living,    that    stand    for   the    scientific 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY       21 

study  of  religion  by  minds  absolved  from 
prejudice.  Max  Miiller,  Deussen  of  Kiel, 
Estlin  Carpenter  of  Oxford,  Jastrow  of 
Pennsylvania,  Jackson  of  Columbia,  Lan- 
man  and  Moore  of  Harvard,  remind  us 
by  the  dignity  and  depth  of  their  effort  to 
discover  and  disclose  the  esoteric  values 
of  religious  conceptions  that  have  little  in 
common  with  the  West,  how  much  can  be 
done  by  the  scholar  to  atone  for  the  mis- 
takes of  the  zealot  and  the  bigot. 

Unhappily,  the  modern  interest  shown 
by  Christians  in  the  indigenous  faiths  of 
the  East  has  not  generally  retained  the 
judicial  temperance  of  true  scholarship. 
In  some  cases,  it  has  fallen  into  a  feeble 
sentimentality,  an  indiscriminate  and  un- 
intelligent praising  of  the  East.  But  the 
conventional  mental  attitude  is  contemp- 
tuous. It  is  the  involuntary  temper  in 
which  the  Anglo-Saxon  examines  intel- 
lectual products  of  the  East.  Scorn  pre- 
cedes knowledge  and  follows  research. 
Disparagement  is  instinctive.  It  becomes, 
too  often,  the  atmosphere  in  which  Chris- 
tian zeal  undertakes  to  do  its  work.  The 
arrow  of  criticism  is  dipped  in  bitterness 


22        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

ere  it  is  set  to  the  bow.  Even  the  lip  of  the 
evangelist  curls  with  disdain  at  the  folly  of 
those  to  whom  he  essays  to  proclaim  a 
better  gospel.  It  is  sixty  years  since  John 
Wilson,  one  of  the  most  consecrated  of 
Scottish  missionaries,  desiring,  with  all  the 
ardor  of  a  noble  heart,  to  win  the  Parsis 
of  Bombay  to  the  Cross  of  Christ,  produced 
a  learned  book  on  "The  Parsi  Religion," 
upon  the  title-page  of  which  he  placed  the 
following  promising  sentence  from  one  of 
the  official  deliverances  of  the  Bombay 
Government:  "The  course  of  argument 
and  fair  reason  cannot  be  impeded." 
Having  thus  encouraged  his  intelligent  and 
sensitive  Parsi  readers  to  anticipate  a 
treatment  of  the  subject  most  sacred  to 
them  in  a  spirit  which  I  have  described  as 
"judicial  temperance,"  Dr.  Wilson  opens 
his  Preface  with  this  formidable  (though 
scarcely  irenic)  deliverance:  "The  religion 
of  the  Parsis,  notwithstanding  the  pueril- 
ities and  absurdities  with  which  it  is  now 
associated,  is  substantially  the  same,  in 
its  general  principles  at  the  present  day, 
that  it  was  in  the  ages  of  antiquity.  It  is 
not  without  high  interest  in  the  history  of 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY        23 

the  speculations  and  errors  of  the  human 
mind.  It  was  perhaps  inferior  in  its  ele- 
ments and  institutions  to  the  forms  of 
faith  professed  by  at  least  some  of  the 
surrounding  nations;  but,  on  this  very 
account,  it  merits  attention;  affording,  as 
it  does,  an  illustration  of  the  almost  un- 
bounded scope  which  the  human  mind 
will,  indolently,  or  actively,  give  to  the 
device  and  practice  of  vanity,  and,  I  will 
add,  folly  and  impiety,  in  connection 
with  its  professed  intercommunion  with 
the  powers  of  the  unseen  world."  * 

One  needs  only  to  read  the  correspond- 
ence that  issued  upon  the  publication  of 
that  book,  to  see  how  deeply  in  the  tender 
flesh  of  Indian  consciousness  sank  the 
arrow  of  Dr.  Wilson's  contemptuous  inter- 
est in  the  Parsi  religion.  Sixty  years  have 
passed,  but  the  spirit  that  poisoned  the 
book  still  runs  in  the  veins  of  some  West- 
ern champions  of  Christ  against  the  East. 
They  cannot,  apparently,  discriminate  be- 
tween the  duty  of  promulgating  the  faith  of 
their  inheritance,  and  the  impulse  to  dis- 

1  The  Parsi  Religion,  by  John  Wilson,  D.  D.,  M.  R.  A.  S. 
Bombay,  1843. 


24        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

parage  and  vilify  the  conceptions  which  they 
hope  to  displace.  They  cannot,  apparently, 
look  up  in  worship  to  their  own  Lord  and 
Master  without  looking  down  in  contempt 
on  institutions  and  theories  of  being  that 
have  had  lordship  and  mastery  for  millions 
of  human  souls  through  a  thousand  gen- 
erations. They  may,  for  obvious  reasons 
of  prudence,  suppress  the  open  utterances 
of  this  contempt,  yet  its  potency  is  in  their 
hearts  and  lurks  beneath  the  outward 
decorum  of  expediency.  But  they  do  not, 
apparently,  observe  how  the  contemptuous 
spirit  nourished  in  the  soul  toward  their 
brother's  faith,  makes  hollow  with  pro- 
fessionalism the  efforts  to  persuade  and 
convert ;  and  often  gives  to  their  own  pre- 
sentations of  religious  thought  a  barrenness 
and  provincialism,  which,  to  their  auditors, 
represent  the  grotesque  or  supercilious 
language  of  aliens.  It  should  not  be  in- 
ferred, from  these  remarks,  that  I  am 
ignorant  of  those  aspects  of  Oriental  reli- 
gious thinking  and  practice  which  from  time 
to  time  have  excited  the  reprobation  or 
the  derision  of  the  West.  No  one,  famil- 
iar with  the  actual  state  of  non-Christian 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY       25 

thought,  both  popular  and  philosophical,  in 
the  Orient  to-day,  will  question  that  there 
are,  in  it,  many  things  that  prompt  the 
spirit  of  disdain,  in  one  who  applies  to  the 
problem  only  the  conventional  standards 
of  Western  judgment.  Alike  in  the  reli- 
gious literature  and  the  religious  practice  of 
the  East  are  conditions  that  not  only  have 
no  parallel  in  the  West,  but  that  contra- 
vene every  Western  tradition  of  intellectual 
efficiency  and  ethical  propriety.  Nor  is  it 
in  the  least  surprising  that  those  who,  in 
either  of  the  mental  attitudes  that  we  are 
now  engaged  in  discussing,  whether  pas- 
sive curiosity  or  contemptuous  interest, 
study  the  ritual  and  morale  of  the  idol 
temple,  or  penetrate  into  the  intellectual 
and  ethical  atmosphere  of  the  Hindu  Pu- 
ranas  and  Tantras,  come  back  from  their 
investigations,  the  one  stimulated  by  hor- 
rifying novelties,  the  other  burning  with 
scornful  denunciations.  These  results  are 
to  be  anticipated  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
from  observations  made  by  those  who  lack 
the  necessary  breadth  of  view,  psychological 
insight,  patient,  tolerant,  comprehending, 
Godlike  love. 


26        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

The  question  engaging  us  at  this  mo- 
ment, and,  in  fact,  throughout  this  Lecture 
and  this  course  of  Lectures,  is  the  follow- 
ing: Is  there  anywhere  to  be  found  the 
suggestion  of  a  mental  attitude  that  we 
may  not  only  take  into  this  study  of  non- 
Christian  faiths  but  into  our  missionary 
labors  among  non-Christian  races,  superior 
to  passive  curiosity  and  unlike  contemp- 
tuous interest?  Is  there  anywhere  to  be 
found  suggestion  of  a  view  so  broad,  an 
insight  so  deep,  a  love  so  patient,  tolerant, 
comprehending,  Godlike,  that  it  discerns 
and  reveres,  beneath  aberrations  of  idol- 
worship,  passionate  cults  of  polytheism,  and 
unethical  reactions  of  a  pantheistic  world- 
order,  the  common  soul  of  humanity,  the 
imperishable  seed  of  God  ?  It  is  my  belief, 
and,  in  this  Lecture  my  contention,  that 
there  is  a  higher  mental  attitude  for  the 
study  of  non-Christian  religions,  and  that 
it  is  suggested  by  the  temper  of  the  mind 
of  Christ,  and  particularly  by  His  attitude 
toward  foreign  races  and  religions.  In 
order  to  appreciate  this  aspect  of  the  mind 
of  Christ,  it  is  not  necessary  to  enter  on 
what   appears  to  some   as  the   debatable 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY       27 

ground  of  theology,  nor  to  raise  any  meta- 
physical question  touching  His  Person. 
For  our  purpose  it  is  better  to  escape  from 
the  perplexing  regions  of  controversy  and 
divergence,  and  to  repair  to  that  ground 
where  all  may  stand  together,  paying 
homage  and  reverence  to  the  mind  of  the 
incomparable  Jesus.  Whatever  breadth 
and  catholicity  we  find  in  Him,  as  a 
Teacher  sent  from  God,  whatever  unifying 
view  of  the  race,  whatever  appreciation  of 
the  universal  in  religion,  as  distinguished 
from  the  local  and  sectarian,  but  takes  on 
deeper  meaning  and  authoritative  sugges- 
tion, if  one  be  drawn  by  the  evidence  to 
regard  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Image  of  the 
Invisible  God. 

There  is,  one  may  say,  an  a  priori  inter- 
est awakened  in  respect  of  the  attitude  of 
Jesus  Christ  toward  foreign  races  and  their 
faiths  when  we  reflect  upon  the  geographi- 
cal location  of  Palestine.  A  cosmopolitan 
atmosphere  pervaded  the  Syrian  desert, 
and  breathed  from  the  eastward  upon  the 
hills  and  valleys  of  Palestine.  This  we  are 
apt  to  forget.  Because  of  the  early  occu- 
pancy  of  the   country   by  the   people   of 


28        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

Israel  and  the  upbuilding  within  it  of 
a  theocratic  commonwealth  marked  by 
great  exclusiveness,  the  mind  tends  to 
regard  the  scene  of  Christ's  life  and  la- 
bors as  relatively  secluded  from  the  com- 
mon world.  Israel,  in  which  He  dwelt, 
and  of  which  He  was  a  part,  seems  to  our 
thought  a  land  isolated  from  other  lands 
by  religious  and  ceremonial  walls.  It  is 
necessary  to  correct  this  impression  by 
recalling  well-known  facts  of  history. 
For  fifteen  centuries  before  the  time  of 
Christ,  the  desert  stretching  eastward 
from  Palestine  had  been  a  highway  to  the 
Orient.  The  tread  of  innumerable  camels 
had  hollowed  the  caravan  road  from  Da- 
mascus northward  through  Mesopotamia 
to  the  lower  Euphrates;  where  ships 
from  India,  creeping  warily  along  the 
Asiatic  shore  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  dis- 
charged their  rich  freight  in  the  marts 
of  Chaldea,  and  their  passengers,  bound 
for  the  Mediterranean  littoral  and  the 
palaces  of  Egypt.  The  lamented  Sir  Wil- 
liam Hunter,  whose  "History  of  British 
India"  was  interrupted  by  his  too  early 
death,  has  left  a  spirited  account  of  the 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY       29 

ancient  trade-routes  between  Southern 
Europe  and  the  Asiatic  peoples.  The 
Syrian  route  was  the  oldest  of  these  imme- 
morial paths  of  international  communica- 
tion. The  complete  control  of  this  Syrian 
route  in  the  age  of  Solomon  forms  what 
Sir  William  Hunter  well  calls  "the  mer- 
cantile epic  of  Israel."  "The  record  of 
the  rare  and  costly  products  with  which  it 
adorned  Jerusalem,  and  of  the  transit  du- 
ties which  it  yielded  to  the  king,  reads  like 
a  psalm  rather  than  a  trade  catalogue."  * 
The  pigments  and  precious  stones,  the 
shields  of  beaten  gold,  the  traffic  of  the 
spice  merchants,  the  apes  and  peacocks 
for  the  pleasure  gardens,  the  sandalwood 
pillars  for  the  House  of  the  Lord,  are  flash- 
ing pictures  of  an  Orientalism  which  abides 
in  India  to  the  present  day.  The  Scrip- 
tures of  the  Old  Testament  breathe  the 
poetry  of  the  caravan  route,  "with  its  ad- 
vancing clouds  of  dust,  its  guards  posted  at 
night,"  its  midday  encampments,  its  brown 
mystery  of  spaces,  its  dry,  delicious  air. 

"Who  is  this?"  cries  the  author  of  the 
Song  of  Solomon,  — 

1  History  of  British  India,  vol.  i.  p.  24. 


30        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

"Who  is  this  that  cometh  up  out  of  the  wilderness  like 
pillars  of  smoke, 
Perfumed  with  myrrh  and  frankincense, 
With  all  powders  of  the  merchant  ?  "  1 

It  was  into  this  atmosphere  of  long-estab- 
lished cosmopolitanism  that  Jesus  came,  to 
teach  men  the  truth  of  a  world-sympathy 
more  powerful  than  mercantile  interest, 
more  subtle  than  racial  instinct.  We  must 
remember  that,  in  His  time,  Jerusalem, 
where  His  ministry  centred,  and  where  it 
consummated  itself  in  the  final  sacrifice, 
was  as  truly  a  meeting-place  and  cross- 
roads of  alien  races  as  Aden  or  Colombo 
to-day.  Through  the  eyes  of  the  narrator 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  we  look  out 
upon  the  sort  of  scene  with  which  Christ 
was  familiar  and  the  sort  of  audience 
which  He  addressed.  "There  were  dwell- 
ing at  Jerusalem, "  says  the  narrator,  "  men 
from  every  nation  under  heaven.  Parthians 
and  Medes  and  Elamites  and  the  dwellers 
in  Mesopotamia,  in  Judaea  and  Cappa- 
docia,  in  Phrygia  and  Pamphylia,  in  Egypt 
and  the  parts  of  Libya  about  Cyrene,  and 

1  Song  of  Solomon  iii.  6.    Cf .  for  all  the  above,  Sir  William 
Hunter,  History  of  British  India,  vol.  i.  pp.  23-30. 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY       31 

sojourners  from  Rome,  both  Jews  and  pros- 
elytes, Cretans  and  Arabians."  ' 

In  addition  to  the  thorough-going  cosmo- 
politanism of  the  time,  caused  by  the  geo- 
graphical and  commercial  conditions  of 
Palestine,  one  must  remember  that  Jesus 
was  born  into  an  age  from  which  the  auto- 
cratic power  of  an  independent  Israel  had 
departed,  giving  place  to  foreign  military 
control,  and  all  the  influences,  direct  and 
indirect,  that  follow  in  the  train  of  such  a 
dispensation.  The  gilded  wings  of  Roman 
eagles  flashed  in  the  Syrian  sun.  Roman 
law-givers  and  Roman  law  policed  the 
conduct  of  the  populace  and  held  in  leash 
the  clerical  insurrectionaries.  Roman  gods, 
Greek  philosophies,  irrepressible  voices  of 
other  civilizations,  broke  in  on  the  proud 
reserve  of  a  nation  whose  glory  was  sepa- 
rateness,  whose  sanctity  was  Pharisaic  scorn 
of  the  world.  In  repudiation  of  contacts  no 
longer  avoidable,  Jewish  orthodoxy  made 
broad  its  phylacteries,  enlarged  the  borders 
of  its  garments,  bound  on  men's  shoulders 
heavy  burdens  and  grievous  to  be  borne; 
seeking,  with  the  bitterness  of  religious  in- 

1  Acts  ii.  5-11. 


32        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

tolerance,  to  provide  an  antidote  for  the 
bitterness  of  political  humiliation.  Upon 
this  spectacle  of  impotent  acerbity  the  bar- 
barian conquerors  looked  with  answering 
scorn;  their  policy  at  once  to  pacify  and 
to  goad;  tolerating  the  temple  sacrifice  to 
Jehovah,  but  taxing  the  worshipers  to  swell 
the  revenues  of  an  idol-serving  Emperor. 

From  the  trampled  background  of  these 
conditions,  the  figure  of  Jesus  emerges  and 
advances  toward  us,  wearing  the  stainless 
mantle  of  purity  and  peace.  No  trace  of 
contemporary  bitterness  is  upon  Him,  no 
bond  of  traditional  narrowness  impedes 
the  freedom  of  His  movement.  How  won- 
derful He  is  when  we  look  on  Him,  and  on 
the  time  from  which  He  sprang!  Light 
against  darkness,  as  the  radiant  bow 
against  the  muttering  cloud.  What  might 
He  not  have  been,  as  an  apostle  of  Phar- 
isaic hate,  with  His  gifts  and  His  inher- 
itance !  If  ever  one  had  the  impulse  of 
hereditary  provocation  to  despise  foreign 
religions,  it  was  He.  Jesus  Christ — be  the 
word  with  reverence  spoken  —  was  a  Jew. 
Behind  Him,  according  to  the  flesh,  ex- 
tended a  pure  Semitic  ancestry,  princely  and 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY        33 

priestly.  The  blood-royal  of  the  House  of 
David  was  in  His  veins.  King  of  the  Jews 
was  He,  in  principle,  and  might  have  been 
in  fact.  Yet  His  thought  is  unoccupied, 
alike  by  yearnings  for  distinction  or  by 
the  political  resentments  of  his  fellow- 
citizens.  Larger  solicitudes  fill  His  breast 
and  pour  forth  beyond  the  boundaries  of 
race  and  country:  "Come  unto  Me,  all  ye 
that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will 
give  you  rest.  Take  My  yoke  upon  you, 
and  learn  of  Me ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly 
in  heart:  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your 
souls.  For  My  yoke  is  easy,  and  My  bur- 
den is  light."1  Had  there  been  but  one 
such  utterance  from  Him,  it  were  enough  to 
show  the  presence  in  contemporary  Juda- 
ism of  a  personality  absolved,  in  instinct, 
in  scope  of  experience,  in  mental  attitude, 
from  ancestral  limitations,  and  superior  to 
current  opinions.  Had  there  been  only 
these  gracious  words,  they  were  enough  to 
separate  Him  forever  from  all  complicity 
with  the  deeds  of  religious  oppression, 
racial  and  sectarian  prejudice,  ecclesias- 
tical ostracism  wrought  in  His  name;  and 

1  Matt.  xi.  28-30. 


34        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

to  inflame  all  kindred  spirits  with  desire  to 
escape  into  the  uncalculating  world-sym- 
pathy of  Christ,  from  a  stunted  and  pro- 
vincialized Christianity,  degenerated  from 
its  glorious  prototype. 

It  is  a  happy  portent  of  the  mental  atti- 
tude in  which  He  is  to  regard  foreign  races 
and  their  faiths,  that  even  the  manger  of 
the  infancy  becomes  a  magnetic  point, 
drawing  the  attention  of  the  thoughtful 
Orient.  The  wise  men  from  the  East,  led 
by  influences  that  we  may  not  define,  seek 
Him  at  His  birth,  with  worship  in  their 
hearts.  Many  a  train  of  patient  camels  had 
moved  through  the  Solitudo  Palmyrena,  and 
plunged  into  the  desert  again,  to  emerge  at 
Damascus,  with  precious  burdens  for  the 
merchants  of  Sidon  and  Ascalon,  or  the 
grandees  of  the  Nile.  But  this  camel  train 
carries  freights  more  precious  than  gold, 
frankincense,  and  myrrh,  even  the  hopes 
and  fears  of  an  East  that,  through  the  ages, 
ever  has  stretched  out  hands  of  longing  unto 
God. 

As  He  reaches  manhood  and  enters  His 
public  ministry,  no  quality  is  more  nobly 
displayed  than  loyalty  to  His  ancestral  race 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY        35 

and  to  its  institutions.  He  has  indeed  come 
unto  His  own,  and  although  His  own  do 
not  receive  Him,  no  rejection  of  His  teach- 
ing, no  injury  done  against  Himself,  can 
alienate  Him  from  the  children  of  Abraham. 
It  is  His  devotion  to  the  Temple  and  the 
Law  that  inflames  His  indignation  against 
those  who  would  defile  the  one  and  per- 
vert the  other.  To  the  mercenary  priests, 
who  permitted  bartering  and  avarice  to  in- 
fest the  sacred  courts,  He  says :  "  Take  these 
things  hence;  make  not  my  Father's  house  a 
house  of  merchandise."  *  To  the  hypocriti- 
cal scribes  His  rebuke  is  terrible:  "Ye  blind  ; 
guides  —  ye  fools  and  blind  —  ye  compass 
sea  and  land  to  make  one  proselyte;  and 
when  he  is  become  so,  ye  make  him  twofold 
more  a  son  of  hell  than  yourselves."  2  By 
the  severity  of  His  denunciations  we  mea- 
sure the  depth  of  His  love  for  the  things  He 
would  protect.  His  affection  for  the  syna- 
gogue was  great ;  His  was  a  familiar  figure 
in  that  forum  of  Jewish  thought.  He  held 
the  Sabbath  in  honor,  and  entertained  the 
Sabbath  custom  as  a  desirable  part  of  life's 
routine.    He  honored  the  teachings  of  the 

1  John  ii.  16.  3  Cf.  Matt,  xxiii.  15-17. 


36        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

past,  and  commended  them  to  the  reason 
and  conscience  of  His  Age.  "Think  not 
that  I  am  come  to  destroy  the  law  or  the 
prophets:  I  came  not  to  destroy,  but  to 
fulfil.  For  verily  I  say  unto  you,  Till 
heaven  and  earth  pass  away,  one  jot  or  one 
tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass  away  from  the 
law,  till  all  things  be  accomplished."  1 

At  times  His  sense  of  loyalty  to  ancestral 
relationships  became  so  strong  it  seemed 
like  a  limitation;  as  when,  in  an  excursion 
out  of  Jewish  territory  into  the  Phoenician 
littoral,  He  said  to  the  foreigner  who  soli- 
cited His  aid :  "I  was  not  sent  but  unto  the 
lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel."  2  One 
loves  to  trace  in  Him  these  marks  of  fidelity 
to  the  local  inheritance  of  tradition,  cus- 
tom, and  duty.  It  makes  His  example  in 
the  larger  relations  of  service  more  compell- 
ing, because  every  note  of  patriotism  and 
hereditary  reverence  for  birthright  obliga- 
tion rang  true  in  His  soul.  The  mental  atti- 
tude of  Christ  toward  Israel  reminds  us 
that  world-sympathy  is  not  attained  by  the 
surrender  of  natural  feeling;  that  passion- 
ate love  for  the  world  at  large  does  not  imply 

1  Matt.  v.  17,  18.  2  Matt.  xv.  24. 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY        37 

loss  of  interest  in  the  world  at  home. 
Christ's  zeal  for  Israel,  undiminished  by  His 
solicitude  for  the  world,  recalls  the  splen- 
did utterance  of  St.  Paul,  the  world-apostle, 
the  most  cosmopolitan  of  Christ's  follow- 
ers, "  If  any  provideth  not  for  his  own,  and 
specially  his  own  household,  he  hath  denied 
the  faith,  and  is  worse  than  an  unbeliever."  ' 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  as  we  observe  and 
admire  in  Christ  this  quality  of  loyalty 
whereby,  though  lifted  in  heart  and  mind 
above  the  Judaism  of  His  time,  He  cannot, 
by  interests  without  or  repulses  within,  be 
alienated  from  His  own,  we  mark,  in  His 
mental  attitude  toward  foreign  races  and 
religions,  a  vigorous  differentiation  from 
the  spirit  of  Israel.  The  essence  of  the 
spirit  of  Israel  toward  the  religious  and 
social  aspirations  of  those  outside  of  the 
circle  of  privilege  might  be  expressed,  with 
the  brevity  of  an  aphorism,  in  the  naive 
admission  of  the  Fourth  Evangelist :  "  Jews 
have  no  dealings  with  Samaritans."  2  The 
extent  to  which  this  separation  of  mental 
attitude  could  be  carried  is  indicated  by 
Christ  in  His  parable  of  the  sufferer  as- 

1  1  Tim.  v.  8.  2  John  iv.  9. 


38        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

saulted  by  highwaymen:  "There  came  a 
priest,  and  likewise  a  Levite,  and  looked  and 
passed  by  on  the  other  side."  *  Loyalty 
to  the  ancestral  type  had  bred  in  Israel 
contempt  for  the  alien.  To  pass  by  on  the 
other  side,  at  first  an  act  of  duty,  that  the 
pearl  of  truth  might  be  kept  aloof  from 
defilement,  had  become  an  instinct  of  es- 
trangement, a  conscious  withdrawal  of  sym- 
pathy, a  leaving  of  the  world  to  its  fate. 
It  is  one  of  the  regrettable  limitations  of 
average  human  nature  that  a  conviction  of 
truth  may  give  birth  to  formidable  errors. 
Witness  is  borne  to  this  throughout  the 
history  of  Christendom.  By  the  spirit  in 
which  men  have  held  and  expressed  faith, 
has  its  progress  often  been  hindered  and  its 
nature  belied.  The  frequent  results  of  con- 
viction have  been  intolerance;  revealed  in 
an  active  form  as  persecution,  in  a  passive 
form  as  self -withdrawal.  The  philosophy 
of  the  spirit  of  persecution  affords  one  of 
the  most  interesting,  as  also  one  of  the  most 
painful,  problems  in  the  history  of  religion. 
The  impulse  to  attack,  to  injure,  even  to 
destroy  those  of  a  faith  contrary  to  one's 

1  Cf.  Luke  x.  SI,  32. 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY       39 

own,  is  not  wholly  inconsistent  with  a  ra- 
tional mind  and  a  high  standard  of  moral- 
ity. The  brilliant  and  ingenuous  St.  Paul, 
referring  to  the  mental  attitude  fostered  in 
him  in  early  life  by  Jewish  intolerance,  gives 
this  analysis  of  the  ethics  of  persecution: 
"  I  verily  thought  with  myself,  that  I  ought 
to  do  many  things  contrary  to  the  name  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  And  this  I  also  did  in 
Jerusalem;  and  I  both  shut  up  many  of  the 
saints  in  prisons,  having  received  authority 
from  the  chief  priests,  and  when  they  were 
put  to  death,  I  gave  my  vote  against  them. 
And  punishing  them  oftentimes  in  all  the 
synagogues,  I  strove  to  make  them  blas- 
pheme ;  and  being  exceedingly  mad  against 
them,  I  persecuted  them  even  unto  foreign 
cities."1  It  is  very  terrible  to  reflect  that 
the  conviction  of  truth  has  power  under 
any  circumstances  to  beget  this  madness, 
this  pursuing  enmity,  this  desire  to  make 
another  human  being  blaspheme  and  for- 
swear the  things  that  are  sacred  to  him. 
Christ  has  explained  how  it  becomes  pos- 
sible. Forewarning  His  disciples  of  the 
sure  approach  of  persecution  to  themselves, 

1  Acts  xxvi.  9-11. 


40        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

He  says:  "They  shall  put  you  out  of  the 
synagogues :  yea,  the  hour  cometh,  that 
whosoever  killeth  you  shall  think  that  he 
offereth  service  unto  God."  Then  He  gives 
the  clue  to  all,  "And  these  things  will  they 
do,  because  they  have  not  known  the 
Father,  nor  Me."  1  The  secret  of  religious 
persecution  is  ignorance  of  God  as  He  is ; 
a  lack  of  comprehension  of  the  spirit  of 
Christ.  Men  have  professed  to  know  God, 
have  professed  to  be  disciples  of  Christ,  yet 
have  persecuted  with  the  enmity  of  devils, 
because  they  knew  not  Him  whom  igno- 
rantly  they  sought  to  please.  Whately 
touches  this  point  when  he  says,  in  the 
course  of  one  of  his  Essays:  "Persecution 
is  not  wrong  because  it  is  cruel ;  it  is  cruel 
because  it  is  wrong."  2 

As  the  softening  influences  of  general 
culture  affect  society,  persecution,  which 
is  the  active  form  of  intolerance,  becomes 
more  infrequent,  and,  on  humanitarian 
grounds,  generally  is  deplored  and  cen- 
sured. Meanwhile  the  passive  form  of 
intolerance,  more  subtle  because  less  obvi- 

1  John  xvi.  2,  3. 

2  Errors  of  Romanism,  p.  144.  4th  ed.  1880. 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY       41 

ous,  more  courteous  but  not  less  un-Christ- 
like,  continues  to  govern  the  mental  atti- 
tude of  many  toward  races  and  faiths  not 
their  own.  The  passive  form  of  intoler- 
ance is  self- withdrawal  —  passing  by  on 
the  other  side;  looking  with  more  or  less 
contempt,  and  leaving  to  their  fate  with 
more  or  less  indifference,  Eastern  races 
and  their  faiths.  It  is  the  form  in  which 
intolerance  secretes  itself  in  an  age  boast- 
ful of  intellectual  breadth,  and  poisons  its 
thinking  at  the  heart.  The  pride  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  culture  is  profound.  Not  without 
reason  do  we  point  to  our  achievements 
in  the  field  of  science  and  in  the  field  of 
religion.  We  have  built  a  glorious  struc- 
ture, self-consistent  in  all  its  parts.  We 
have  had  the  courage  to  investigate  the 
data  of  our  religion  in  the  light  of  history, 
and  to  record  our  findings  impartially;  we 
have  shown  energy  in  the  study  of  social 
conditions  at  home,  in  the  propagation  of 
our  religious  beliefs  abroad,  and  in  mak- 
ing converts  who  renounced  their  Oriental- 
ism in  religion  and  became  Westernized. 
We  are  properly  anxious  to  develop  the 
strength    and   correct   the    weaknesses   of 


42        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

other  lands  and  people,  to  cast  the  beam  of 
political  or  financial  iniquity  out  of  our 
own  eye  that  we  may  see  clearly  to  cast  out 
the  mote  of  official  wrongdoing  from  the 
eye  of  any  of  that  younger  brotherhood 
of  republics  for  which  we  have  assumed 
responsibility.  We  are  willing  to  enter 
into  commercial  relations  with  the  East, 
wherever  the  instinct  of  self-advantage 
prompts  the  alliance.  Yet,  after  a  hundred 
years  of  modern  intercourse,  the  thought 
of  the  West,  the  sympathies  of  the  West, 
the  affiliative  instincts  of  the  West,  have 
been  held  in  reserve  with  a  caution  blended 
of  distrust,  contempt,  and  self-satisfaction. 
The  military  achievements  of  Japan  have 
provoked  admiration,  but  the  fellowship 
of  the  heart  is  as  yet  given  grudgingly 
by  all  save  an  enlightened  few.  Skilled 
observers  describe  the  spiritual  abyss  divid- 
ing West  from  East,  and  account  for  its 
existence,  naively.  Mr.  Meredith  Town- 
send,  in  his  brilliant  paper  on  the  "Mental 
Seclusion  of  India, " l  bids  us  observe  that 
Englishmen  "dwell  among  these  people 
(i.  e.  the   Indian    races),  they  talk    their 

1  Cf.  Asia  and  Europe,  pp.  146-154.  New  York,  1901. 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY       43 

tongues,  they  do  all  manner  of  business 
with  them,  they  live  by  giving  them  advice 
and  orders,  and  yet  they  know  next  to 
nothing  about  them."  He  proceeds  to  say: 
"In  the  whole  century  of  intercourse  no 
Anglo-Indian  has  ever  written  a  book 
which  in  the  least  degree  revealed  the  inner 
character  and  motives  of  any  considerable 
section  or  any  great  single  class,  of  this  im- 
mensely numerous  people.  It  is  as  certain 
as  any  fact  can  be,  that  any  Anglo-Indian 
who  wrote  a  book  perceived  to  be  a  *  reveal- 
ing' book  about  Indians,  or  any  section 
of  them,  would,  as  his  reward,  receive  for- 
tune, reputation  among  his  contemporaries, 
fame  with  posterity;  and  yet  no  Anglo- 
Indian  has  ever  done  it,  or,  so  far  as  appears, 
ever  will  do  it."  When  Mr.  Townsend  asks 
"What  is  the  solution  of  this  mystery?" 
he  admits  that  he  has  "no  full  answer  to 
give,"  but  conceives  the  best  available 
answer  to  be  that  "the  Indian  himself 
deliberately  secludes  his  mind  from  the 
European  with  a  jealous,  minute,  and  per- 
sistent care,  of  which  probably  no  man  not 
gifted  with  an  insight  like  that  of  Thack- 
eray could  succeed  in  giving  even  a  remote 


44        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

idea."  However  accurate  may  be  this 
charge  of  voluntary  mental  seclusion  (and 
so  candid  and  honorable  an  observer  as 
Mr.  Meredith  Townsend  is  not  likely  to 
be  inaccurate),  the  disposition  which  he 
deplores  has  a  probable  origin,  not  in 
Oriental  secretiveness,  but  in  the  spirit  of 
intolerance  which,  in  its  passive  form  of 
haughty  self- withdrawal,  has  set  the  West- 
ern mind  in  a  non-sympathetic  attitude, 
prohibitive  of  spiritual  fellowship.  Those 
who  have  broken  away  from  the  Western 
conventionality  of  looking  down  upon  the 
East,  and  of  passing  it  by  on  the  other  side; 
those  who  have  sought,  not  in  the  spirit 
of  criticism,  but  in  the  spirit  of  love  and 
respect,  to  enter  the  inner  circle  of  the 
Oriental  consciousness,  find  that  the  secre- 
tiveness of  which  Mr.  Townsend  com- 
plains is  the  result,  rather  than  the  cause, 
of  Anglo-Saxon  contemptuousness.  In  a 
later  Lecture  I  shall  recur  to  this  subject 
and  discuss  it  in  detail. 

Meanwhile,  I  close  the  present  discus- 
sion with  one  further  attempt  to  set  forth 
the  complete  exemption  of  the  mind  of 
Christ    from    the    limitations    that    have 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY       45 

bound  His  followers,  as  well  as  from  those 
that  affected  His  contemporaries.  If  we 
would  understand  the  meaning  of  the  term 
"world-sympathy,"  we  must  go  to  Jesus 
Christ  and  learn  of  Him.  In  Him  it  repre- 
sents an  atmosphere  through  which  He  saw 
all  people  and  all  questions;  in  which,  if 
one  may  venture  so  to  speak,  He  lived  and 
moved  and  had  His  being.  The  precise 
equivalent  of  the  term  "world-sympathy" 
as  the  atmosphere  of  the  mind  of  Christ 
is  the  title  "Son  of  Man,"  evidently  most 
dear  to  Him.  He  esteemed  Himself  to  be 
in,  and  of,  the  race.  The  tribe,  the  family, 
the  mother  that  bore  Him,  He  acknowledged 
and  He  loved;  but  not  in  any  sense  that 
made  the  Cretan,  the  Arabian,  the  stranger 
from  Rome,  the  Lybian,  the  dweller  in 
Mesopotamia,  less  the  flesh  of  His  flesh, 
the  bone  of  His  bone.  "Whosoever  shall 
do  the  will  of  My  Father  which  is  in 
heaven,  he  is  My  brother,  and  sister, 
and  mother."  »  He  had  not  where  to  lay 
His  head,  because  no  domicile  could  hold 
a  spirit  to  which  all  the  world  was  home. 
He  loved  the  world,  lived  for  it,  died  for 

1  Matt.  xii.  50. 


46        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

it.  The  large  friendliness  of  His  attitude 
is  beautiful  to  look  upon.  He  conceived 
of  His  own  influence  as  designed  for  and 
capable  of  diffusion  throughout  the  con- 
sciousness of  every  species,  grade,  and  class 
of  humanity:  "I  am  the  light  of  the 
world."1  He  offered  Himself  as  an  undif- 
ferentiated gift  to  humanity  —  a  gift  from 
the  Infinite  Store  of  Good:  "The  bread 
which  I  will  give  is  My  flesh,  for  the  life  of 
the  world."  2  He  conceived  that  by  death 
He  might  best  express  the  longing,  that 
exceeded  the  capacity  of  life,  to  gain  the 
answering  love  of  man.  "I,  if  I  be  lifted 
up  from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  men  unto 
Myself."3  As  a  Jew  by  earthly  inherit- 
ance, He  recognized  the  limitations  that  set 
bounds  and  special  values  upon  the  salva- 
tion of  the  House  of  Israel,  and  deliberately 
He  broke  over  them  in  a  torrent  of  world- 
sympathy:  "Other  sheep  I  have,  which  are 
not  of  this  fold:  them  also  I  must  bring, 
and  they  shall  hear  My  voice;  and  they 
shall  become  one  flock,  one  shepherd. " 4  He 
leads  His    disciples,   at  the   last,   beyond 

1  John  viii.  12.  2  John  vi.  51. 

3  John  xii.  32.  *  John  x.  16. 


CHRIST  AND  WORLD-SYMPATHY       47 

the  walls  of  the  city  of  ceremonialism  and 
race  prejudice  and  stands  on  the  hill  of 
Bethany,  whence  one  can  catch  the  far- 
beaming  flash  of  His  eye  that  saw  to  the 
world's  end,  and  the  pointing  of  His  hand 
that  stretched  toward  the  ancient  East, 
and  swept  the  new-born  West,  as  He  says : 
"Go  ye  into  all  the  world."  '  Nor  did  He 
lack  evidence  that  the  passion  for  humanity 
that  burned  within  Him  smote  with  blessed 
warmth  that  answering  heart  of  human- 
ity which  wakes  ever,  to  the  earth's  last 
bound,  where  love  lives  and  speaks.  The 
alien  woman  of  Syrophcenicia  knows  with 
a  mother's  instinct  that  a  heart  like  this 
will  not  withhold  its  gift  from  her  tortured 
child.  The  half-heathenized  Samaritan 
finds  in  His  majestic  power  of  insight  grace 
that  wakes  conscience  from  the  dead. 
The  Greeks  seek  Him.  The  Roman  at  the 
Cross  salutes  Him.  And  He,  with  pity  in 
His  failing  eye,  and  charity  in  His  invin- 
cible heart,  prays  for  His  foreign  murder- 
ers, as  He  dies,  loving  in  death,  as  He  had 
loved  in  life,  the  world  that  lies  beyond 
what  men  call  true  religion — "Father,  for- 

1  Mark  xvi.  15. 


48        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

give  them;  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do."  l 

Such  is  the  world-sympathy  of  Jesus 
Christ.  In  this  Lecture  I  have  sought  but 
to  exhibit  it.  I  have  not  attempted  to 
interpret  it.  In  my  Lecture  to-morrow 
evening  I  shall  try  to  find  the  present  mes- 
sage of  this  world-sympathy,  as  suggested 
by  the  Larger  Meaning  of  the  Incarnation. 

1  Luke  xxiii.  34. 


LECTURE    II 

THE  LARGER  MEANING  OF  THE  INCARNATION 

It  lacks  but  a  few  days  of  sixty  years  since 
Frederick  W.  Robertson,  of  whom  Stopford 
Brooke,  his  biographer,  said,  "The  work 
which  he  has  done  upon  human  hearts  is 
as  imperishable  as  his  own  immortality  in 
God,"  preached  at  Cheltenham,  on  be- 
half of  the  Hospital,  his  sermon  on  "The 
Human  Race  Typified  by  the  Man  of  Sor- 
rows." He  referred  to  the  world-sympathy 
of  Christ  implied  in  His  self-chosen  title, 
"The  Son  of  Man."  He  said:  "There  are 
two  aspects  in  which  we  may  consider  the 
Redeemer  of  the  world.  We  may  think  of 
Him  as  the  Christ  or  we  may  think  of  Him 
as  the  Son  of  Man.  When  we  think  of  Him 
as  the  Christ,  He  stands  before  us  as  God, 
claiming  our  adoration.  When  we  think  of 
Him  in  that  character  in  which  He  so  loved 
to  describe  Himself,  as  the  Son  of  Man, 
He  stands  before  us  as  a  type  or  specimen 
of  the  whole  human  race.    As  if  the  blood 


50        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

of  the  whole  human  race  were  in  His  veins, 
He  calls  Himself  the  Son  of  Man.  There 
is,"  he  continues, "  a  universality  in  the  char- 
acter of  Christ  which  you  find  in  the  charac- 
ter of  no  other  man.  Translate  the  words 
of  Christ  into  what  country's  language  you 
will,  He  might  have  been  the  offspring 
of  that  country.  Date  them  by  what  cen- 
tury of  the  world  you  will,  they  belong 
to  that  century  as  much  as  to  any  other. 
There  is  nothing  of  nationality  about 
Christ.  There  is  nothing  of  that  personal 
peculiarity  which  we  call  idiosyncrasy. 
There  is  nothing  peculiar  to  any  particular 
age  of  the  world.  He  was  not  the  Asiatic. 
He  was  not  the  European.  He  was  not  the 
Jew.  He  was  not  the  mechanic.  He  was 
not  the  aristocrat.  But  He  was  the  Man. 
He  was  the  child  of  every  age  and  every 
nation.  His  was  a  life  world-wide.  His 
was  a  heart  pulsating  with  the  blood  of  the 
human  race.  He  reckoned  for  His  ancestry 
the  collective  myriads  of  mankind.  Em- 
phatically He  was  the  Son  of  Man."  1 
In  my  Lecture  last  evening  I  attempted, 

1  The  Human  Race  and  Other  Sermons,  preached  at  Chel- 
tenham, Oxford,  Brighton.  New  York,  1881. 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  51 

in  the  spirit  of  Frederick  W.  Robertson, 
to  depict  the  characteristic  mental  attitude 
of  Christ  toward  foreign  races  and  their 
faiths,  and  to  present  it  in  contrast  with 
some  of  the  attitudes  that  have  been  taken 
in  the  course  of  Western  civilization;  the 
blind  antagonism  fostered  by  international 
ignorance  and  bigotry ;  the  passive  curiosity 
of  the  modern  traveler  in  search  of  new 
sensations ;  the  contemptuous  interest  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  specialist  in  the  field  of  eth- 
nic faiths;  the  ill-considered  zeal  of  the 
missionary  who  attempts  to  employ  denun- 
ciation or  derision  as  agents  of  conversion 
from  what  he  describes  as  the  follies  of 
heathenism.  I  have  pointed  out  the  ex- 
emption of  the  mind  of  Christ  from  these 
limitations  that  have  bound  His  followers. 
While  preserving  toward  His  ancestral  race 
and  its  institutions  an  inalienable  loyalty, 
His  world-sympathy  was  as  an  atmosphere 
through  which  He  saw  all  people  and  all 
questions.  Love  for  the  world  took  on,  in 
Him,  a  character  so  majestic  and  attained 
a  degree  so  absolute,  that  the  only  ade- 
quate symbol  of  it  is,  by  common  consent 
of  twenty  centuries,  the  Cross  of  Calvary. 


52        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

The  interpretation  of  the  mental  attitude 
of  Christ  was  not  attempted  in  the  last 
Lecture.  The  time  and  the  subject  sufficed 
only  to  exhibit  on  the  sombre  background 
of  contrast  the  radiant  Person  of  the  Son 
of  Man.  It  is  the  problem  of  this  Lecture 
to  convey  in  outline  the  suggestion  of  a 
possible  interpretation  of  this  incomparable 
person.  I  may  say  that  what  I  have  seen 
of  the  world  has  forced  me  to  seek  some 
interpretation  of  Christ  as  broad  and  as 
vital  as  the  problem  of  humanity.  We 
can  scarcely  permit  ourselves  to  think  of 
Christ's  life  without  thinking  of  its  meaning 
for  the  world.  We  cannot  content  ourselves 
with  merely  reviewing  the  words  and  deeds 
of  Christ,  laying  them  away  in  the  casket 
of  memory  with  the  pensive  reflection  that 
He  in  whom  such  loveliness  and  catholicity 
appeared  was  numbered  with  the  dead 
while  still  bearing  on  His  brow  the  youth- 
fulness  of  three  and  thirty  years.  When 
we  attempt  to  describe  Christ  in  the  terms 
of  regretful  appreciation  with  which  we 
speak  of  another  who  exhibited  charms  of 
character,  but  was  snatched  away  by  an 
untimely  death,  the  lips  refuse  to  do  their 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  53 

work.  They  are  sealed  by  the  conviction 
of  the  reason  and  the  heart  that  behind 
and  within  the  brief  chronicle  of  that  Life 
lies  a  permanent  revelation  of  facts  that 
are  universal,  of  qualities  that  are  infinite. 
Upon  whatever  line  of  personal  expression 
we  view  Christ,  the  conviction  strengthens 
that  His  local  appearance  upon  earth  calls 
for  interpretation  in  the  terms  of  the  uni- 
versal, as  a  revelation  given  under  the  form 
of  an  historic  event.  If  we  take  His  words 
and  ponder  them,  they  deliver  to  us  mes- 
sages, not  from  the  limited  sources  of  an 
individual  experience,  but  from  the  author- 
itative seat  of  the  Final  Wisdom.  "Never 
man  so  spake."  If  we  take  His  character 
and  analyze  it,  it  presents  the  aspects,  not 
of  approximation  to  an  ideal  standard,  but 
of  the  unveiling  of  the  utterly  True,  the 
utterly  Good,  the  utterly  Beautiful.  If  we 
take  His  mental  attitude  toward  human- 
ity, it  is  found  to  contain  more  than  the 
disposition  of  liberality,  shared  by  many  of 
the  greater  minds;  it  is  the  embodiment 
of  principles  involving  the  attitude  of  God 
toward  the  world,  the  intrinsic  value  of 
man   considered   apart  from  accidents  of 


54        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

environments,  the  fundamental  unity  of 
the  human  race.  In  the  present  Lecture 
we  are  engaged  specifically  with  these  last 
considerations;  namely,  the  implications 
involved  in  the  mental  attitude  of  Jesus 
Christ  toward  foreign  races  and  their  faiths. 
I  shall  hope  to  show  that  they  furnish  us 
with  suggestions  of  the  Larger  Meaning  of 
the  Incarnation. 

That  it  is  possible  to  attach  to  the  Incar- 
nation of  Jesus  Christ  meanings  that  are 
large  and  welcome  with  the  warmth  of 
reality,  or  meanings  that  are  narrow, 
exclusive,  and  repellent  with  technicality, 
is  shown  by  the  course  of  religious  think- 
ing in  the  West.  One  cannot  doubt,  who 
looks  broadly  on  the  development  of 
Christian  history  from  the  beginning,  that 
the  sense  of  obligation  to  define,  and,  so 
to  say,  to  interpret  the  Person  of  Christ, 
has  been  present  at  all  times.  Nor  can 
one  see  how  the  essential  moral  principles 
of  our  religion  could  have  been  protected 
from  evaporation,  or  how  the  religion 
itself  could  have  worked  its  way  through 
the  ignorance,  superstition,  and  animalism 
which  it  encountered,  had  there  not  been 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  55 

this  sleepless  vigilance  not  only  to  safe- 
guard, but  to  interpret,  the  faith  that 
animated  the  company  of  apostles  and 
mobilized  the  army  of  martyrs.  But  the 
scholasticism  of  the  West,  however  lofty 
its  purpose  and  devout  its  spirit,  involved 
itself  in  the  intricacy  and  exactness  of  its 
definitions  of  the  Person  of  Christ;  and, 
by  throwing  the  accent  upon  the  academic 
side  of  the  problem,  it  furnished  an  illus- 
tration of  the  way  in  which  the  greatest 
of  subjects  can  be  enshrouded  in  disputes 
about  words,  to  no  profit  but  to  the  sub- 
verting of  the  hearers.  Principal  Caird 
does  not  state  the  situation  unfairly  in 
saying  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation 
"came  to  be  regarded  simply  as  one  of 
those  doctrines  which  lie  beyond  the  scope 
of  human  intelligence,  as  a  theological 
enigma  or  mystery;  a  doctrine  indeed  not 
contrary  to  reason,  but  above  reason;  yet 
which,  as  authoritatively  revealed,  must 
be  received  as  an  article  of  faith."  *  When 
the  accent  is  thus  placed  on  the  technical 
definition  of  Christ  as  the  physical  and 
metaphysical  apparition  of  God,  the  inter- 

1  Fundamental  Ideas,  vol.  ii.  p.  100. 


56        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

est  shifts  necessarily  from  the  fact  of  the 
Incarnation  and  its  meaning  for  the  world 
to  scholastic  conflicts  over  rival  definitions 
of  the  fact.  Henry  Hallam,  in  his  "  In- 
troduction to  the  Literature  of  Europe,"  * 
comments  on  the  great  revival  of  the  papal 
religion  which  occurred  after  the  shock  it' 
had  sustained  in  the  first  part  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  He  assigns  as  the  prin- 
cipal cause  of  this  revival  of  Catholicism 
the  relapse  of  Protestantism  into  academic 
controversies.  He  speaks  of  those  "per- 
petual disputes,  those  irreconcilable  ani- 
mosities, that  bigotry,  and,  above  all,  that 
persecuting  spirit,  which  were  exhibited 
in  the  Lutheran  and  Calvinistic  churches. 
Each  began  with  a  common  principle,  the 
necessity  of  the  orthodox  faith.  But  this 
orthodoxy  meant  evidently  nothing  more 
than  their  own  belief  as  opposed  to  that 
of  their  adversaries ;  a  belief  acknowledged 
to  be  fallible,  yet  maintained  as  certain; 
rejecting  authority  in  one  breath  and  ap- 
pealing to  it  in  the  next;  claiming  to  rest  on 
sure  proof  of  reason  and  Scripture,  which 
their  opponents  were  ready  with  just   as 

1  Cf.  vol.  i.  pp.  542-552. 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  57 

much  confidence  to  invalidate."  One  of 
the  subjects  in  dispute  between  Calvinists 
and  Lutherans  was  the  real  presence  or 
ubiquity  of  Christ's  body  in  the  Sacrament. 
Another  was  the  free  will  of  man  in  rela- 
tion to  the  Decree  of  God.  A  third  was 
the  Person  of  Christ  in  its  metaphysical 
relation  to  the  Godhead ;  and  it  led  to  one 
of  the  tragedies  of  scholastic  history  when 
the  charming  Spanish  physician  Servetus, 
"who  distinctly  held  the  Divinity  of  Christ" 
(Hallam),  was  burned  to  ashes  at  the  age 
of  forty-two  by  the  not  less  charming  and 
gifted  Calvin,  then  but  two  years  his  senior, 
who  held  the  same  belief,  yet  with  other 
metaphysical  connotations. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  press  upon  this  audi- 
ence my  own  personal  faith  in  that  aspect 
of  the  Incarnation  which  relates  to  the  in- 
ward and  esoteric  correspondences  of  the 
nature  of  Christ  with  the  absolute  essence 
of  the  Infinite.  I  have  such  a  faith,  and 
it  grows  stronger  continually.  This  faith 
is  for  me  most  precious  and  of  deepening 
reality,  but,  in  a  matter  so  high  and  so 
obviously  beyond  the  sphere  of  definition, 
it  is  my  duty  to  hold  this  faith  with  trem- 


58        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

bling  before  God  and  to  confess  it  with 
humility  before  men.  The  attempt  to 
define  the  indefinable  and  to  invest  the 
result  with  authority,  is  the  producing 
cause  of  schism  in  the  household  of  Christ 
and  alienation  among  His  brethren.  It  is 
a  part  of  the  pathos  of  Christian  history 
that  the  joy  of  sharing  in  the  larger  view 
of  the  Incarnation  so  often  has  been  sacri- 
ficed to  the  zealous,  but  futile,  effort  to 
establish  the  universal  authority  of  specific 
theories  of  the  physical  and  phenomenal 
Person  of  Christ.  It  would  be  a  comfort 
to  some,  perhaps,  if  the  universal  authority 
of  a  particular  theory  could  be  established. 
Meanwhile  there  is  a  sense,  large  and  warm 
with  reality,  in  which  those  who  differ  in 
theory  may  agree  in  principle,  and  see  in 
Christ  with  eyes  of  common  faith  the 
Image  of  the  Invisible  God.  It  is  the 
effort  of  this  Lecture  to  bring  into  view 
this  larger  interpretation,  which  casts  no 
criticism  and  raises  no  debate  on  any  man's 
personal  metaphysic  of  Christ,  but  answers 
that  instinct  in  every  heart  which  prostrates 
itself  in  reverence  and  offers  itself  in  ser- 
vice to  the  Divine  that  Christ  discloses. 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  59 

"Strong  Son  of  God,  immortal  Love, 

Whom  we,  that  have  not  seen  Thy  face, 
By  faith,  and  faith  alone,  embrace, 
Believing  where  we  cannot  prove ; 

"Thou  seemest  human  and  Divine, 

The  highest,  holiest  manhood,  Thou: 

Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how; 

Our  wills  are  ours,  to  make  them  Thine." 

So  long  as  we  look  upon  the  Incarna- 
tion Idea  as  a  breach  of  the  natural  order, 
as  the  breaking  into  the  world  of  a  God 
who  ordinarily  lives  apart  in  the  inscrutable 
solitudes  of  infinity,  so  long  will  the  Incar- 
nation of  Jesus  Christ  present  to  many 
minds  aspects  of  unreality  which  invalidate 
His  claim  to  be  the  Redeemer  and  the  Light 
of  the  World.  Those  whose  theory  of  the 
world  is  materialistic,  and  to  whom  mind  is 
simply  a  function  of  the  material  life  and 
the  physical  brain,  are  likely  to  have  no 
place  in  their  ordinary  system  of  thinking 
for  the  Incarnation  Idea;  because  they  are 
likely  to  feel  no  need  of  an  unseen  realm  of 
spiritual  personality  lying  behind  the  ma- 
terial world,  and  expressing  itself  through 
the  medium  of  the  material  and  phenome- 


60        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

nal  world.  This  expression  of  the  unseen 
spiritual  through  the  visible  material  is  the 
Incarnation  Idea.  Mr.  William  Wynne  Pey- 
ton, a  Scottish  writer  too  little  known  on 
this  side  of  the  sea,  says  in  his  book,  "The 
Three  Greatest  Forces  in  the  World,"1 
"The  Incarnation  Idea  is  essentially  that 
of  the  unseen  universe  looking  out  upon  us 
from  the  seen."  This  is  a  striking  and  cor- 
rect definition.  To  those  who  can  trust  the 
evidence  of  their  own  consciousness  as  it 
is  given  occasionally  in  the  presence  of  the 
lovely  or  awe-inspiring  scenes  of  nature, 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  apprehending  the 
reasonableness  of  the  Incarnation  Idea. 
It  is  this  of  which  we  are  conscious  in 
moments  of  unfettered  communion  with 
nature.  That  which  the  eye  sees,  of  gran- 
deur and  beauty:  the  balancings  of  clouds, 
the  glittering  ice-ranges,  the  interminable 
delight  of  sun-swept  oceans ;  that  which  the 
ear  hears,  of  birds  in  fair  morning  hours  of 
early  summer,  of  winds  breathing  through 
masses  of  pine  forest;  that  which  the  hand 
handles,  of  emblazoned  flowers  and  gems 
curiously  wrought  in  the  lower  parts  of  the 

1  Page  105. 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  61 

earth,  conveys  to  us  more  than  the  image 
of  itself.  Looking  out  on  us  from  that 
phenomenal  image  is  suggestion  of  the 
Invisible;  of  the  world  of  illimitable  pur- 
pose, feeling,  and  power.  This  is  the  Incar- 
nation Idea,  expressed  through  nature.  It 
is  the  witness  in  nature  of  the  Immanence 
of  God.  One  cannot  refrain  from  repeat- 
ing Wordsworth's  immortal  lines,  written 
as  he  looked  once  more  on  "the  sound- 
ing cataract,  the  tall  rock,  the  mountain, 
the  deep  and  gloomy  wood"  near  Tintern 
Abbey:  — 

"I  have  learned 
To  look  on  nature,  not  as  in  the  hour 
Of  thoughtless  youth;  but  hearing  oftentimes 
The  still,  sad  music  of  humanity. 

And  I  have  felt 
A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man; 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 


62        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

But  this  experience  of  the  Incarnation 
Idea,  "of  the  Unseen  Universe  looking  out 
upon  us, "  comes  nearer  to  us  than  the  con- 
fines of  external  nature.  We  know  it  in 
ourselves,  in  the  mysterious  witnessings  of 
our  subliminal  consciousness  to  a  power 
belonging  to  the  Infinite,  the  Eternal,  the 
Unseen,  which  is  looking  out  upon  us  from 
the  depths  of  our  own  being.  It  is  the  In- 
carnation Idea;  God  with  us,  in  us;  and  we, 
in  Him.  It  is  the  scientific  verification  of 
religion.  "I  contend,"  said  the  lamented 
Frederick  W.H.  Myers,  in  his  "  Human  Per- 
sonality and  its  Survival  of  Bodily  Death," 
"that  religion  and  science  are  no  separa- 
ble or  independent  provinces  of  thought 
or  action;  but  rather  that  each  name  im- 
plies a  different  aspect  of  the  same  idea." 
"Assuredly,"  he  continues,  "this  deepening 
response  of  man's  spirit  to  the  cosmos  deep- 
ening around  him  must  be  affected  by  all 
the  signals  which  now  are  glimmering  out 
of  the  night  to  tell  him  of  his  inmost  nature 
and  his  endless  fate."  *  The  words,  spoken 
by  one  who  now,  we  must  believe,  knows  in 
the  state  after  death  the  fulfillment  of  these 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  3. 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  63 

prophecies  of  the  subliminal  consciousness, 
remind  us  again  of  Wordsworth:  — 

"  Those  first  affections, 

Those  shadowy  recollections, 
Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain  light  of  all  our  day, 
Are  yet  a  master  light  of  all  our  seeing; 

Uphold  us,  cherish,  and  have  power  to  make 
Our  noisy  years  seem  moments  in  the  being 
Of  the  eternal  Silence:  truths  that  wake, 

To  perish  never; 
Which  neither  listlessness,  nor  mad  endeavor, 

Nor  Man  nor  Boy, 
Nor  all  that  is  at  enmity  with  joy, 
Can  utterly  abolish  or  destroy!" 

What  I  have  now  said  concerning  the 
witness  of  the  Invisible  through  nature  and 
man  prepares  us  to  see  in  Jesus  Christ  the 
complete  expression  of  the  Incarnation  Idea. 
If  through  impersonal  nature  we  have  re- 
ceived impressions  of  a  self-revealing  God 
looking  out  upon  us  from  the  things  that 
are  seen;  if  in  our  own  consciousness  we 
have  had  this  impression  confirmed  of  an 
indwelling  and  self-disclosing  Infinite,  not- 
withstanding all  the  superincumbent  den- 
sity of  the  physical,  and  all  the  obstructing 


64        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

media  of  sinfulness  and  ignorance,  there  is 
at  least  no  contradictory  element  involved 
in  the  thought  of  one  absolute  expression 
of  the  Incarnation  Idea,  one  complete  self- 
disclosure  of  the  mind  and  spirit  of  God 
occurring  in  the  world's  history.  That  such 
did  occur  in  the  Incarnation  of  Jesus  Christ 
becomes  a  scientific  probability,  in  the  light 
of  the  actual  history  of  civilization.  The 
words  of  Frederick  W.  H.  Myers,  to  whom 
I  have  already  referred,  are  significant  of 
the  opinion  of  a  man  of  science:  *  "In  an 
age  when  scattered  ritual,  local  faiths,  tribal 
solutions  of  cosmic  problems,  were  destroy- 
ing each  other  by  mere  contact  and  fusion, 
an  event  occurred  which  in  the  brief  record 
of  man's  still  incipient  civilization  may  be 
regarded  as  unique.  A  life  was  lived  in 
which  the  loftiest  response  which  man's  need 
of  moral  guidance  had  ever  received  was  cor- 
roborated by  phenomena  which  have  been 
widely  regarded  as  convincingly  miraculous, 
and  which  are  said  to  have  culminated  in 
a  Resurrection  from  the  dead.  To  those 
phenomena  or  to  that  Resurrection  it  would 
at  this  point  be  illegitimate  for  me  to  refer 

1  Cf.  Human  Personality,  vol.  i.  p.  3. 


LARGER  MEANING   OF  INCARNATION  65 

in  defence  of  my  argument.  I  have  ap- 
pealed to  science,  and  to  science  I  must 
go;  in  the  sense  that  it  would  be  unfair 
for  me  to  claim  support  from  that  which 
science  in  her  strictness  can  set  aside  as 
the  tradition  of  a  pre-scientific  age.  Yet 
this  one  great  tradition,  as  we  know,  has, 
as  a  fact,  won  the  adhesion  and  reverence 
of  the  great  majority  of  European  minds. 
The  complex  results  which  followed  from 
this  triumph  of  Christianity  have  been  dis- 
cussed by  many  historians.  But  one  result, 
which  here  appears  to  us  in  a  new  light, 
was  this  —  that  the  Christian  religion,  the 
Christian  Church,  became  for  Europe  the 
accredited  representative  and  guardian  of 
all  phenomena  bearing  upon  the  World 
Unseen." 

From  this  point  of  view  science  itself  can 
regard  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Image  of  the 
Invisible  God,  the  unique,  unhindered  ex- 
pression of  the  life  and  fullness  of  the  God- 
head. In  Jesus  Christ  the  Incarnation  Idea 
obtains  entire  fulfillment:  the  unseen,  to 
use  the  glowing  words  of  William  Wynne 
Peyton,1  "looks  out  upon  us  from  the  seen. 

1  Cf.  Three  Greatest  Forces,  pp.  105,  117,  118. 


66        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

The  Incarnation  in  Christ  is  linked  into  the 
history  of  the  whole  creation.  It  is  not  a 
wedge  driven  into  the  unity  of  nature; 
rather  it  is  nature  fulfilling  herself,  the 
home-coming  of  the  hope  of  ages,  the  star- 
dust  of  incarnations  rolled  into  a  sun. 
When  the  Sinless  Man  appeared,  the  Ideal, 
the  Archetype,  the  Archangel  of  Humanity, 
then  He  is  discerned  as  the  Incarnation  of 
the  Absolute  Personality,  whom  we  feel  in 
the  heart  of  the  universe." 

This  discussion  of  the  Incarnation  Idea 
obviously  bears  upon  our  main  subject, 
which  is,  "The  Attitude  of  Jesus  Christ 
toward  Foreign  Races  and  Religions."  The 
significance  and  the  authority  of  that  attitude 
are  determined  by  the  significance  for  us 
of  the  Person  of  Christ.  The  larger  mean- 
ing of  the  Incarnation  begins  to  appear 
when  in  that  sacred  Person  we  feel  the  Un- 
seen Infinite  looking  out  upon  us  from  the 
seen;  when  we  become  able  to  accept  His 
own  suggestion:  "He  that  hath  seen  Me 
hath  seen  the  Father."1  At  that  moment 
a  new  significance  invests  His  every  word 
and  attends  His  every  act  bearing  upon 

1  John  xiv.  9. 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  67 

questions  of  humanity;  an  authority  which 
combines  with  the  charm  of  example  the 
majesty  of  revelation.  It  still  remains  prob- 
able, because  of  our  various  temperaments, 
our  diverse  training,  our  dissimilar  tradi- 
tional inheritances,  that  we  may  differ  from 
one  another  in  respect  of  that  private  and 
personal  metaphysic  of  Christ  which  repre- 
sents in  the  soul  of  each  worshipful  man 
his  own  capacity  to  realize  the  inward  and 
esoteric  correspondences  of  the  nature  of 
Christ  with  the  absolute  essence  of  the 
Infinite ;  yet  we  are  one  in  reaching  a  con- 
ception of  the  Father  through  Christ,  and, 
with  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews, we  can  all  say:  "  God  hath  spoken 
unto  us  in  a  Son,  who  is  the  effulgence  of 
His  glory,  and  the  very  Image  of  His  sub- 
stance." * 

What,  then,  are  those  characteristics  in 
the  mental  attitude  of  Christ  toward  for- 
eign races  and  their  faiths,  whereby  — 
assuming  Him  to  reveal  the  Father  —  we 
learn  the  actual  attitude  of  God  toward 
this  complex  world  of  men  ?  I  have  pointed 
out  in  my  former  Lecture  the  contrast  be- 

1  Cf.  Heb.  i.  1-3,  marg. 


68        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

tween  the  mind  of  Christ,  in  this  world 
relation,  and  conventional  attitudes  with 
which  history  and  observation  have  made 
us  familiar.  We  look  in  vain  for  any  trace 
in  Him  of  antagonism  such  as  has  been 
developed  by  racial  aversions,  feuds,  and 
religious  fanaticisms.  He  was  entirely  out 
of  that  atmosphere  of  antagonism.  He 
never  entered  it.  It  is  impossible  for  the 
imagination  to  connect  it  with  Him.  Pre- 
judice He  had  none;  to  race  hatreds  He 
was  a  stranger.  To  the  type  of  superior- 
ity represented  by  Pharisaism  He  opposed 
the  fine  and  terrible  scorn  of  a  nature  too 
great  for  such  petty  self -exaltation.  His 
only  religious  controversy  was  with  the 
insincerity  and  intolerance  of  the  religious 
leaders  of  His  own  people.  There  were 
idol  temples  in  His  time,  with  their  priests 
and  their  votaries,  yet  He  attacked  them 
not.  Nature  worship  and  animism  existed 
in  His  time,  yet  He  made  no  crusade  against 
them.  Hinduism,  Buddhism,  Confucian- 
ism, Zoroastrianism,  were  all  in  force 
when  He  gathered  the  eleven  on  the  hill 
of  Bethany  and  said:  "Go  ye  therefore, 
and   make  disciples  of   all   the  nations." 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  69 

But  no  syllable  of  denunciation  was  added 
concerning  faiths  and  practices  opposed  to 
every  ethical  and  intellectual  principle  for 
which  He  stood.  There  is  reason  to  think 
that  He  made  use  of  certain  features  of 
those  older  religions  in  some  of  His  own 
teachings  and  discourses. 

It  appalls  one  to  think  of  the  recurring 
paroxysms  of  anti-Semitism  in  various 
quarters  of  Christendom,  of  the  animalistic 
ferocity  against  Moslems  that  made  the 
Crusaders,  going  to  sanctify  the  grave  of 
Him  who  abhorred  religious  strife,  like 
tigers  vaulting  on  their  prey.  This  is 
anti-Christ,  signing  itself  with  the  name  of 
Christ.  It  is  godlessness  essaying  to  do 
God  service. 

Nor  can  we  find  in  Christ  a  trace  of  the 
passive  curiosity  that  looks  lightly  on  this 
manifestation  of  ethnic  religion  and  on 
that,  as  diverting  eccentricities  of  heathen- 
ism, which  stimulate  the  beholder  with 
the  sense  of  novelty  as  he  saunters  through 
lands  with  which  he  owns  no  brotherhood, 
which  are  to  him  no  more  than  scenes  in  a 
play.  Equally  far  from  the  mind  of  Christ 
is  the  note  of  academic  contemptuousness 


70        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

toward  alien  thought  that  runs  like  an 
undertone  through  some  of  the  Western 
study  of  religion,  prejudicing  its  conclu- 
sions. We  are  all  familiar  with  it.  It 
represents  the  involuntary  constitutional 
reactions  of  the  historic  sense  of  the  West 
against  an  Oriental  spirit,  which,  with 
deficient  cosmopolitanism,  it  disparages  be- 
cause it  is  so  unhistorical,  forgetting  that 
the  mysticism  it  disparages,  like  the  Hegeli- 
anism  over  whose  downfall  it  exults,  may 
be,  meantime,  in  certain  of  its  best  ele- 
ments, slowly  coming  to  its  own  in  the  deep- 
est life  of  the  West;  merely  because  the 
West,  like  the  East,  is  human.  It  is  im- 
possible to  connect  the  Spirit  of  Christ  with 
this  attitude  of  academic  contemptuous- 
ness.  It  fits  neither  His  thinking  nor  His 
feeling.  His  thinking  precludes  it,  in  part 
because  historically  He  stood  close  to 
a  philosophical  atmosphere  imbued  with 
agnosticism,  yet  never,  even  by  implica- 
tion, condemned  the  esoteric  instinct,  nor 
taught  that  the  ethical  is  to  be  segregated 
from  the  mystical,  nor  that  the  one  by 
necessity  excludes  or  infringes  upon  the 
other.    What  Christ  denounced  was  a  ritu- 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  71 

alistic  mysticism  that  had  outlived,  in  senile 
interest  in  trifles,  its  virile  zest  for  the  deep 
things  of  God. 

Christ's  thinking  precluded  this  aca- 
demic contemptuousness,  because,  also,  of 
the  completeness  of  His  view  of  the  world. 
He  conceived  it  ever  in  its  oneness,  as  re- 
lated to  Himself,  and  as  related  to  truth. 
He  saw  Himself  always  in  world  relations. 
The  utterance  in  Matthew,1  with  the 
magnificent  rendering  supplied  by  the 
margin,  states,  as  in  a  glittering  epigram, 
His  impartial  self -giving  to  the  world: 
"As  the  lightning  cometh  forth  from  the 
east  and  is  seen  even  unto  the  west,  so 
shall  be  the  presence  of  the  Son  of  Man." 
And  the  companion  saying,  also  in  Mat- 
thew,2 called  forth  by  His  appreciation  of 
the  religious  insight  of  a  member  of  an 
alien  race,  points  to  His  inherent  reverence 
for  faith  in  the  Infinite,  in  whomsoever 
it  may  be  found:  "I  say  unto  you,  that 
many  shall  come  from  the  east  and  the 
west,  and  shall  sit  down  with  Abraham, 
and  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven." 

1  Matt.  xxiv.  27,  marg.  2  Matt.  viii.  11. 


72        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

When  we  gather  and  classify  all  the  data 
in  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  supplied  by 
deed,  or  word,  or  by  the  not  less  eloquent 
implications  of  silence,  showing  His  tem- 
per and  mental  attitude  toward  the  world, 
it  may  be  said  that  three  generalizations 
of  great  sublimity  appear  to  control  His 
thinking  and  to  furnish  Him  a  basis  on 
which  to  live  and  to  die.  These  are:  the 
Father's  impartial  interest  in  humanity;  the 
unqualified  value  of  human  life;  the  essen- 
tial unity  of  the  race.  Christ's  assurance  of 
the  Father's  impartial  interest  in  humanity 
cannot  be  shown,  in  a  single  instance,  more 
clearly  than  in  that  Logion  of  Matthew, 
where,  as  with  the  wave  of  a  king's  sceptre, 
He  relegates  to  the  past  the  Jewish  social 
conception  and  supplants  it  with  His  own: 
"  Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said,  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbour,  and  hate  thine  enemy: 
but  I  say  unto  you,  Love  your  enemies,  and 
pray  for  them  that  persecute  you;  that  ye 
may  be  sons  of  your  Father  which  is  in 
heaven:  for  He  maketh  His  sun  to  rise  on 
the  evil  and  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on 
the  just  and  the  unjust." *    This  utterance 

1  Matt.  v.  43-45. 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  73 

is  typical.  On  this  conception  of  the  divine 
inclination  of  impartial  love  He  built  His 
life  and  achieved  His  death,  as  on  a  rock 
impregnable,  against  which  the  gates  of 
hell  prevailed  not.  By  this  utterance  and 
by  the  perpetual  amplification  of  it  in  His 
life,  He  placed  Himself  on  record  against 
race  hatreds  and  feuds,  whether  expressed 
in  the  bloody  encounters  of  war,  or  in  the 
envenomed  scornfulness  of  hereditary  pre- 
judices. Against  these  He  took  ultimate 
ground,  that  they  were  un-Godlike,  contra- 
dictions of  a  divine  order,  clouds  of  wrath, 
vapors  in  a  lower  atmosphere,  hiding  in- 
solently the  impartial  sunshine  of  an  infi- 
nite interest  in  man.  It  is  most  glorious 
to  reflect  upon  Christ's  assurance  of  the 
Father's  universal  interest  in  humanity;  to 
see  the  corresponding  breadth  and  sweet- 
ness of  His  thinking,  as  the  effect  of  this 
assurance.  It  conditioned  all  that  He  said 
and  did  and  was.  Nothing  offended  Him 
save  the  attempts  of  priestly  intolerance  or 
social  tyranny  to  deny  or  intercept  this  re- 
velation of  the  Father.  The  ignorant,  the 
helpless,  the  idol-worshiping  foreigners, 
the  sinner,  the  harlot,  the  red-handed  sol- 


74        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

diers  fulfilling  their  awful  duty  at  His  Cross 
—  He  comprehended,  forgave,  loved  them 
all;  seeing  them  all,  and  the  innumerable 
multitude  of  whom  they  were  types,  in  their 
relation  to  the  impartial  interest  in  the 
heart  of  God. 

Equally  wonderful  is  Christ's  assurance 
of  the  unqualified  value  of  human  life.  If 
we  could  pause  to  analyze  the  psychology 
of  His  treatment  of  a  number  of  unrelated 
cases,  —  such  as  the  wayside  blind  pauper, 
the  refined  Nicodemus,  the  Greek  woman 
of  Syrophcenicia,  the  young  ruler,  Pilate, 
Simon  Peter,  Mary  of  Magdala,  the  centu- 
rion at  Capernaum,  the  woman  of  Samaria, 
and  many  others, — evidence  would  appear 
of  a  generalization  running  like  a  deep  and 
silent  tide  beneath  His  ministry,  bearing 
it  ever  to  lives  as  lives,  irrespective  of  the 
accidents  of  race,  culture,  natural  capacity, 
or  moral  development.  All  that  the  canons 
of  social  and  ecclesiastical  authority  stood 
for  as  classifying  individuals  in  a  scale 
of  relative  importance  had,  apparently,  no 
value  for  Him.  He  ignored  it  and  went  to 
the  mere  manhood  in  man,  the  mere  woman- 
hood in  woman,  to  the  mere  humanity  in 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  75 

all,  to  take  note  of  it  only,  and  at  every  cost 
to  save  it.  "  What  shall  a  man  be  profited, 
if  he  shall  gain  the  whole  world,  and  for- 
feit his  life?  or  what  shall  a  man  give  in 
exchange  for  his  life  ?  "  1  Life  had  for  Him 
unqualified  value;  value  in  its  own  right. 
If  adorned  with  wealth,  office,  religious  pres- 
tige, it  was  not  thereby  more  to  Him.  If 
scarred  with  poverty,  ignorance,  sin,  and 
the  stain  of  the  pariah,  it  was  not  thereby 
less  to  Him.  It  was  all  life,  human  life; 
and  on  the  face  of  life  Christ  saw  the  like- 
ness of  a  child  to  a  Father. 

The  fruit  of  these  two  generalizations 
was  a  third :  the  essential  unity  of  the  race. 
The  Father's  impartial  interest  in  human- 
ity, the  unqualified  value  of  human  life,  were 
as  postulates  forcing  the  conclusion  that, 
beneath  all  confusing  differentia,  the  race 
is  one.  How  deeply  the  generalization  was 
imbedded  in  the  consciousness  of  Christ 
appears  by  implication,  as  we  see  the 
thought  of  Christ  reflected  in  the  apostolic 
age,  rather  than  in  any  extended  reference 
made  by  His  own  lips.  He  assumed  the 
unity  of  the  race  in  every  spoken  word  of 

1  Matt.  xvi.  26. 


76        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

unrestricted  invitation,  in  every  uncalculat- 
ing  work  of  mercy.  He  visualized  before- 
hand His  own  crucifixion  as  an  uplifting,  in 
a  world-centre  of  sacrifice,  whence  should 
go  to  the  circumference  of  life  one  force  of 
love  intelligible  to  one  homogeneous  hu- 
man conscience  and  soul.  "  I,  if  I  be  lifted 
up  from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  men  unto 
Myself."  "This,"  says  the  narrator  with 
awful  solemnity,  "He  said,  signifying  by 
what  manner  of  death  He  should  die."  * 
But  what  He  left  unsaid  by  word  of  mouth, 
touching  the  unity  of  the  race,  He  left  on 
record  in  that  spirit  of  mind,  that  temper 
of  soul,  which,  when  it  profoundly  condi- 
tions a  personality,  makes  its  controlling 
convictions  more  evident  without  words 
than  with  them.  We  have  only  to  know 
the  apostolic  age  to  discover  the  impres- 
sion made  by  Christ  touching  His  concep- 
tion of  the  essential  unity  of  the  race.  To 
a  life  that  has  attained  unto  Divine  know- 
ledge, says  Paul,  "there  cannot  be  Greek 
and  Jew,  circumcision  and  uncircumcision, 
barbarian,  Scythian,  bondman,  freeman: 
but  Christ  is  all  and  in  all." 2  The  author  of 

1  John  xii.  33.  2  Col.  iii.  10,  11. 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  77 

the  Apocalypse  sees  in  vision  the  numbered 
host  of  Israel  in  the  City  of  God,  one 
hundred  forty  and  four  thousand.  Then, 
turning  from  a  segregated  and  counted 
Israel,  his  eyes  look  out  on  an  undifferen- 
tiated human  race:  "After  these  things  I 
saw,  and  behold,  a  great  multitude,  which 
no  man  could  number,  out  of  every  nation, 
and  of  all  tribes  and  peoples  and  tongues, 
standing  before  the  throne."1  Such  was 
the  reflection  cast  by  Christ's  thinking  upon 
the  age  of  His  immediate  followers.  It  is 
impressive,  under  any  circumstances,  to  see 
a  life  founded  upon  such  generalizations  as 
these.  The  product  of  these  generalizations 
seems  to  be,  in  all  cases,  a  characteristic 
breadth  of  vision,  a  reverence  for  person- 
ality, a  chastened  tenderness.  When  we 
find  these  qualities  in  one  of  our  contempo- 
raries, this  breadth  of  vision,  this  reverence 
for  personality,  this  chastened  tenderness, 
joined  with  a  corresponding  righteousness 
of  character,  we  say  of  such  a  one  that  he  is 
Christlike.  By  this  we  mean  that  in  such  a 
one  we  seem  to  find  a  suggestion  of,  possibly 
a  remote  approximation  to,  qualities  whose 

1  Cf.  Rev.  vii. 


78        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

originals  came,  once  for  all,  and  all  at  once, 
to  perfect  manifestation  in  One  who  called 
Himself  the  Son  of  Man.  But  the  history 
of  Western  thought  since  the  age  of  Christ, 
whatever  else  it  shows,  shows  that  neither 
the  mind  nor  the  heart  can  stand  before 
this  Christ  presence  without  inquiry  into 
His  nature.  Every  effort  has  been  made 
to  abandon  that  metaphysical  inquiry  and 
to  take  Him  simply  as  a  human  incident 
of  remarkable  beauty  and  exemplary  ser- 
viceableness.  No  such  effort  permanently 
avails.  There  is  that  in  man's  religious  con- 
sciousness which  pauses  in  His  presence  as 
Moses  at  the  burning  bush,  saying:  "I  will 
turn  aside  and  see  this  great  sight."  He 
Himself  precipitates  our  inquiry — "Whom 
do  men  say  that  I,  the  Son  of  Man,  am?" 
Age  after  age  has  answered  that  challenge 
from  His  lips.  The  answers,  taken  chrono- 
logically, form,  in  themselves,  an  epitome 
of  the  history  of  philosophy  and  the  evolu- 
tion of  ethics.  The  interpretations  of  the 
nature  of  Christ,  both  scholastic  and  emo- 
tional, reflect  the  times  in  which,  and  the 
persons  by  whom,  they  have  been  made. 
Beneath  them  all,  like  a  deep  pedal  note 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  79 

held  firm  beneath  the  intricate  counterpoint 
of  a  cathedral  organ,  is  a  perpetual  voice 
from  the  Infinite  that  seems  to  say:  "This 
is  my  Beloved  Son,  hear  ye  Him."  Each 
age  makes  its  contribution,  helpful  or  other- 
wise, to  the  long  answer.  Perhaps  the  con- 
tribution of  our  age  may  be  a  profounder 
apprehension  of  the  Incarnation  Idea, 
whereby  the  Incarnation  of  Jesus  Christ 
shall  appear,  not  as  an  event  without  analo- 
gies, not  as  a  breaking  in  of  God  upon  the 
field  of  human  life,  but  as  the  most  natu- 
ral personal  expression  of  the  personally 
Self -revealing  Infinite.  "The  Incarnation 
Idea,"  to  use  once  more  the  words  of  Pey- 
ton, "is  essentially  that  of  the  Unseen  Uni- 
verse looking  out  upon  us  from  the  seen." 
Our  testimony  to  this  is  involuntary.  It 
occurs  whenever  nature  is  permitted  to  con- 
trol our  attention ;  whenever  we  rest  trust- 
fully upon  the  bosom  of  nature,  as  John 
upon  the  breast  of  Jesus.  It  occurs  when 
the  inward  ear  is  quickened  to  hear,  far 
within  the  recesses  of  consciousness,  the 
bidding  of  a  will  not  our  own,  the  movement 
of  a  law  whose  sanctions  are,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  the  breathing  of  a  Spirit  of  which  we 


80        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

cannot  tell  whence  it  cometh  nor  whither 
it  goeth.  It  occurs  when  from  Christlike 
souls  about  us  come  forth  suggestions  of 
indwelling  power  beyond  the  measure  of  the 
human  average,  prophetic  intimations  of 
their  immortality.  It  is  the  Unseen  looking 
out  upon  us  from  the  seen.  But  why  should 
that  Unseen,  being  personal,  look  out  upon 
us  only  from  the  impersonal;  from  the  im- 
personality of  nature  and  the  indefinable 
depths  of  our  subliminal  consciousness,  or 
from  the  half-developed  suggestions  of  di- 
vine affinity  in  the  souls  of  the  best  men 
and  women  ?  Why  should  not  the  Unseen, 
being  personal,  look  out  upon  us  once  for 
all  when  the  fullness  of  time  was  come,  in 
the  similitude  of  a  perfect  Manhood  ?  Why 
should  not  that  Unseen,  being  personal,  in- 
terpret itself  completely  in  the  terms  of  the 
warm  and  living  attributes  of  personality, 
which  we  know  best  and  can  most  surely 
understand  ? 

Let  us  assume  that  He  has  done  so,  and 
that  this  is  the  larger  meaning  of  the  Incar- 
nation; the  largest  meaning  yet  discerned 
by  us,  that  Christ  is  in  truth  the  Personal 
Revelation  of  the  Infinite,  which  looks  out 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  81 

upon  us  from  the  visible  character  and  con- 
duct of  the  one  Perfect  Manhood.  What 
knowledge  would  be  brought  to  us,  by 
this  particular  Revelation  of  the  Infinite? 
Knowledge  on  many  lines  which  cannot 
even  be  suggested  in  this  Lecture.  We  have 
to  do  with  one  line  only,  the  mental  atti- 
tude of  God  toward  the  world  as  we  know 
it.  We  see  the  world  with  its  present  race 
divisions,  and  its  conventional  scaling  of 
racial  values,  as  advanced  races  and  back- 
ward races,  Eastern  races  and  Western 
races.  We  see  it  with  its  conventional 
classification  of  religions,  as  true  and  false; 
a  classification  commonly  indicated  by  sta- 
tistics, diagrams,  and  parti-colored  maps. 
We  see  it  with  minds  affected  by  conven- 
tional prejudice,  in  favor  of  the  Western 
mode  of  seeing  things  and  doing  things  and, 
more  or  less  bitterly,  more  or  less  contemp- 
tuously, against  the  Eastern  mode  of  seeing 
things  and  doing  things. 

Let  us  assume  that  the  Incarnation  is, 
not  a  sporadic  and  accidental  instance  of 
a  gifted  life  surmounting  the  average, 
but  the  Personal  Infinite  looking  out 
upon  us  from  the  visible  Son  of  Man,  in 


82        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

a  deliberate  self-disclosure;  then  the  gen- 
eralizations conditioning  the  mind  of  Christ 
become  for  us  an  actual  view  of  the  mind 
of  God.  We  see  the  Father,  in  His 
thought  concerning  the  ethnic  and  reli- 
gious problems  of  the  modern  world.  Upon 
this  view  of  the  Incarnation,  God  is  what 
Christ  is :  Christ's  impartial  interest  in  hu- 
manity, Christ's  sense  of  the  unqualified 
value  of  humanity,  Christ's  vision  of  the 
essential  unity  of  the  race,  are  qualities  of 
God. 

The  intrinsic  interest  thus  acquired  by 
these  conceptions  can  be  overlooked  only 
by  the  unreflecting.  Their  bearing,  when 
understood,  upon  the  restatement  of  many 
fixed  opinions  concerning  the  world,  is 
natural  and  obvious.  Not  without  effort 
can  the  human  mind,  restrained  by  genera- 
tions of  conventionality,  rise  even  to  the  im- 
plications contained  in  the  conception  of 
a  God  who  takes  an  impartial  interest  in 
humanity,  who  is  no  respecter  of  persons, 
who,  while  electing  men  and  peoples  for 
special  service,  has  no  favored  nation;  who 
would  have  all  men  to  be  saved  and  come 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth.    From  the 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  83 

Divine  mind,  prejudice  in  all  its  forms  and 
degrees  is  absent.  To  that  mind,  not  being 
in  subjection  to  categories  of  space  and 
time,  the  age-long  chasm  between  East  and 
West  is  not  present  as  a  necessary  fact  of 
consciousness ;  neither  do  the  reversals  and 
cleavages  of  race  interests  in  the  drama  of 
history  have,  for  Him,  as  for  us,  the  effect 
of  shifting  the  accent  of  power  and  impor- 
tance from  Oriental  to  European  civiliza- 
tion. There  is  a  sense  in  which  history  and 
the  philosophy  of  history  cannot  give  us  the 
ultimate  facts  of  existence;  being  them- 
selves conditioned  on  time  categories,  not 
authoritative  for  the  mind  of  God.  Letters 
and  art,  exploration  and  war,  feudalism  and 
democracy,  Church  and  State,  conquest 
and  independence,  labor  and  capital,  race 
affinity  and  race  antipathy,  are  limitations 
and  modes  of  partial  expression  in  a  phe- 
nomenal universe.  But  God's  thoughts  are 
not  our  thoughts,  neither  are  His  ways  our 
ways.  For  as  the  heavens  are  higher  than 
the  earth,  so  are  His  ways  higher  than  our 
ways,  and  His  thoughts  than  our  thoughts.1 
To  Him  all  hearts  are  open,  all  desires 

1  Cf.  Is.  lv.  8,  9. 


84        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

known,  and  from  Him  no  secrets  are  hid. 
He  hates  nothing  that  He  has  made. 

This  impartial  interest  in  humanity  is, 
in  the  mind  of  God,  joined  with  His  sense 
of  the  unqualified  value  of  human  life. 
Except  as  we  see  God  in  Christ,  it  is 
scarcely  possible  for  us  so  to  emancipate 
ourselves,  even  in  theory,  from  the  ten- 
dency to  discrimination  in  a  statement  of 
values  as  to  conceive,  much  less  to  con- 
form to,  God's  estimate  of  life.  Even  those 
natural  affections  wherewith  He  has  en- 
dowed us,  while,  in  principle,  they  help 
us  to  understand  Divine  love,  act,  at  the 
same  time,  as  limitations  upon  what  we 
try  to  affirm.  We  call  God  "Father," 
and  we  do  well;  but  the  selective  love  of 
a  man  for  the  children  of  his  own  body 
precludes  him  from  fathoming  a  Father- 
hood that  is  to  all  flesh  what  the  father- 
hood of  a  man  is  to  one  or  two.  To  the  in- 
herent limitations  in  natural  relationships 
are  added  innumerable  others  developed 
in  the  struggle  for  existence  and  under  the 
principle  of  selection.  At  every  point  civ- 
ilization makes  its  way  by  new  discrimina- 
tive categories.     Education  and  illiteracy, 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  85 

physical  capacity  and  incapacity,  beautiful 
youth  and  withered  age,  poverty  and 
opulence,  tradesmanship  and  aristocracy, 
private  work  and  public  fame,  goodness 
and  perversity,  stronger  races  and  weaker 
races,  the  practical  West  and  the  dream- 
ing East :  —  by  these  and  a  thousand  other 
lines  we  delimit  frontiers  of  caste  and 
establish  scales  of  relative  value.  Unless 
it  be  that  the  Infinite  Unseen  looks  out 
upon  us  and  reveals  itself  in  Christ,  it  is 
practically  out  of  our  power  even  to  con- 
ceive a  God-Mind  that,  while  cognizant  of 
these  distinctions,  is  unfettered  by  them; 
that  sets  the  same  value  of  the  priceless  hu- 
man upon  the  emperor  intrenched  within 
his  palace  and  the  starving  peasant  shot 
down  at  his  gate;  between  the  soul  of  a 
Wilberforce  pleading  in  Parliament  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery  and  the  cowering  cap- 
tive of  the  slave-driver,  dragging  his  fetters 
coastward  through  the  hollow  paths  of  an 
African  jungle. 

That  aspect  of  the  Larger  Meaning  of 
the  Incarnation  which  most  affects  my  pre- 
sent purpose  in  these  Lectures  is  Christ's 
vision  of  the  essential  unity  of  the  race. 


86        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

(That  unity  I  propose  to  discuss  in  detail 
in  my  next  Lecture.)  Christ  saw  the  race 
as  one  homogeneous  body  of  life.  He 
regarded  His  Incarnation  as  an  incorpora- 
tion of  Himself  in  the  common  flesh  of 
this  undifferentiated  race.  He  was  the 
Son  of  Man  giving  Himself  for  the  life  of 
the  world.  If  indeed  the  Personal  Infinite 
is  disclosed  in  Christ,  then  the  Incarnation 
may,  in  the  splendid  words  of  Caird,1  be 
said  "to  have  changed  for  us  the  whole 
aspect  of  our  moral  and  spiritual  life,  not 
merely  by  setting  before  us  an  example 
of  moral  perfection,  but  by  disclosing  the 
presence  of  a  divine,  or  infinite,  element 
in  our  nature;  by  revealing  to  us  under 
all  the  limiting  conditions  of  humanity  — 
its  transiency  and  evanescence,  its  weak- 
nesses and  imperfections,  even  its  moral 
defilement  and  disability  —  an  ideal  glory 
and  beauty,  an  essential  affinity  with  the 
nature  of  God."  So,  we  must  believe,  to 
the  mind  of  God,  the  intrinsic  nature  of  the 
race  appears ;  as  one,  and  as  kindred  with 
Himself.  All  possible  divisions,  whereby, 
in  a  code  of  scientific  classification,  por- 

1  Fundamental  Elements,  vol.  ii.  pp.  103,  104. 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  87 

tions  of  the  race  are  segregated  from  other 
portions,  are  to  the  mind  of  God  super- 
ficial and  formal.  Race  divisions,  color 
lines,  linguistic  barriers,  types  of  civiliza- 
tion, advancement,  retrogression,  forms  of 
government,  systems  of  religion,  are  acci- 
dents of  variation  on  the  surface  of  an 
organism  unified  in  fact  by  its  "essential 
affinity  with  the  nature  of  God." 

When  this  view  of  the  unity  of  the  race 
is  considered,  new,  and,  we  may  believe, 
more  approximately  adequate,  meaning  is 
given  to  that  event  which  has  enchained 
the  interest  of  twenty  centuries,  the  Death 
of  Christ.  In  the  moment  of  the  Cross, 
as  in  each  moment  of  the  Incarnation,  it 
is  possible  to  believe  that  the  Personal 
Infinite  looks  out  upon  us. 

The  Western  traveler  in  Japan  experi- 
ences reverential  feeling  as  he  stands 
before  the  Daibutsus,  or  colossal  bronze 
images  of  the  deified  Buddha,  —  among  the 
most  magnificent  products  of  Japanese  reli- 
gious art.  Of  that  at  Nara,  dating  from 
the  eighth  century,  or  of  that  at  Kami- 
kura,  dating  from  the  thirteenth  century, 
the  estimate  of  one  deeply  versed  in  the 


88        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

emotional  message  of  the  higher  arts  is 
well  within  the  truth:  "The  impression  it 
produces,"  says  Basil  Hall  Chamberlain, 
"grows  on  the  beholder  each  time  that 
he  gazes  afresh  at  the  calm,  intellectual, 
passionless  face,  which  seems  to  concen- 
trate in  itself  the  whole  philosophy  of  the 
Buddhist  religion  —  the  triumphs  of  mind 
over  sense,  of  eternity  over  fleeting  time, 
of  the  enduring  majesty  of  Nirvana  over 
the  trivial  prattle,  the  transitory  agitations 
of  mundane  existence." '  It  is  a  great 
religious  conception.  It  makes  its  own 
appeal  to  some  of  the  greatest  emotions 
in  man.  But  the  Larger  Meaning  of  the 
Incarnation  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  concep- 
tion of  a  God  greater  than  the  Daibutsu  — 
even  of  a  God  whose  affinity  with  the  race 
brings  Him  forth  from  the  unbroken  peace 
of  eternity  to  a  self-revelation  of  love,  that 
speaks  at  last  through  pain  and  sacrifice. 
Perhaps  not  in  our  language  has  any  other 
voice  expressed  more  gloriously  than  Jean 
Ingelow's  the  unity  of  the  race  and  the 
Divine  acknowledgment  of  its  kinship  with 
God  as  interpreted  by  the  Death  of  Christ. 

1  Things  Japanese,  p.  315,  4th  ed. 


LARGER  MEANING  OF  INCARNATION  89 

"And  didst  Thou  love  the  race  that  loved  not  Thee, 
And  didst  Thou  take  to  heaven  a  human  brow  ? 
Dost  plead,  with  man's  voice,  by  the  marvelous  sea  ? 
Art  Thou  his  kinsman  now  ? 

"  By  that  one  likeness  which  is  ours  and  Thine, 
By  that  one  nature  which  doth  hold  us  kin, 
By  that  high  heaven,  where,  sinless,  Thou  dost  shine 
To  draw  us  sinners  in; 

"  By  Thy  last  silence  in  the  judgment-hall, 
By  long  foreknowledge  of  the  deadly  tree, 
By  darkness,  by  the  wormwood  and  the  gall, 
I  pray  Thee  visit  me." 


LECTURE    III 
THE  ESSENTIAL  UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

Mr.  James  Bryce,  in  the  first  chapter  of 
"The  American  Commonwealth,"  quotes 
with  approval  a  remark  of  Aristotle  to  the 
effect  that  the  first  step  in  investigation 
is  to  ask  the  right  questions.1  This  just 
observation  might  with  advantage  be  pre- 
faced by  another:  the  power  to  ask  the 
right  questions  presupposes  the  right 
mental  attitude  toward  the  subject  to  be 
investigated.  The  subject  engaging  us  in 
these  Lectures  is  the  Human  Race.  My 
effort  thus  far  has  been  to  find  a  mental 
attitude  toward  this  subject  that  seemed 
to  carry  in  itself  inherent  authority  as  a 
standard  for  imitation.  We  have  sought 
it  where,  by  the  common  consent  of  the 
Western  world,  it  might  be  expected  to 
exist,  namely,  in  the  mind  of  Christ.  The 
results  of  my  inquiry  and  the  implications 
contained  in  those  results  are  before  you 

1  Cf.  vol.  i.  p.  4,  2d  ed. 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE  91 

in  the  first  and  second  Lectures.  The  his- 
torical records  of  Christ's  words,  actions, 
and  influence,  and  of  the  impressions 
formed  thereby  in  the  minds  of  men, 
during  a  brief  but  significant  time  of 
earthly  manifestation,  form  the  larger 
part  of  the  New  Testament  writings.  By 
a  comparison  of  these  with  the  conven- 
tional attitudes  of  the  Western  mind 
toward  Oriental  races,  we  have  discrim- 
inated the  qualities  of  breadth,  sympathy, 
vital  interest,  and  love  that  'marked  the 
position  taken  by  the  mind  of  Christ 
toward  the  great  world  that  stretched  out 
eastward  and  westward,  beyond  the  bounds 
of  Judaism.  It  was  a  world  with  which 
by  physical  inheritance,  being  of  Jewish 
birth,  He  had  no  affiliation.  His  position 
toward  that  larger,  foreign  world  is  in 
sharp  contrast  with  prevailing  sentiment 
found  among  Western  nations  and  men. 
Hatred,  suspicion,  implacable  antagonism, 
ferocious  efforts  undertaken  in  the  name 
of  Christ  to  destroy  His  supposed  ene- 
mies, unprovoked  attempts  at  conquest  for 
commercial  gains,  not  infrequently  have 
animated  the  passions  of  the  West  against 


92        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

Oriental  races.  In  milder  moods  or  times 
violence  has  given  place  to  passive  curi- 
osity; the  traveler  in  search  of  new  sensa- 
tions makes  the  East  his  pleasure  ground, 
finding  in  strange  scenes  and  stranger 
customs  food  for  an  amusing  holiday. 
The  scientific  spirit  has  seized  upon  the 
East  as  a  field  of  research;  translates  its 
classics,  compares  its  religions  as  the  cults 
of  alien  races,  subjects  its  consciousness  to 
psychological  tests;  looking  down,  with  an 
Anglo-Saxon  disdain,  often  subconscious 
because  hereditary,  upon  what  seem  to  it 
the  weird  and  inconsequent  movements  of 
the  Eastern  mind.  Not  so  did  Christ  look 
out  on  the  world.  The  attitude  of  His 
spirit,  as  I  have  shown  in  the  first  Lecture, 
was  quite  different  from  these  attitudes. 
To  Him,  loyal  though  He  was  to  the  ances- 
tral tradition  of  His  mother's  house,  there 
were  no  alien  races.  He  was  a  part  of  all, 
for  all  were  members  of  one  humanity,  and 
in  that  humanity  He  had  clothed  Himself, 
to  be  one  with  it  in  life  and  in  death. 
Upon  the  world  He  looked  as  upon  a 
brotherhood,  with  a  brother's  interest 
therein,  a  brother's  affection,  a  brother's 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE  93 

purpose  of  self-sacrifice.  Thus  has  been 
rewarded  our  inquiry  into  the  world- 
sympathy  of  Jesus  Christ.  I  am  prepared 
to  say  that  the  ethical  grandeur  of  His 
attitude  toward  a  world,  which  from  the 
point  of  view  of  Jewish  conviction  lay 
altogether  beyond  the  bounds  of  true 
religion,  seems  to  give  to  that  attitude 
inherent  authority  for  us  as  a  standard 
for  imitation. 

In  the  second  Lecture  I  considered  this 
mental  attitude  of  Christ  in  the  light  of 
implications  involved  in  the  thought  of  the 
Incarnation.  Under  many  modifications  of 
theology  and  metaphysic,  in  terms  varied 
to  suit  the  needs  and  abilities  of  all  minds, 
from  the  untutored  peasant  and  the  unques- 
tioning child,  to  the  scientific  altruist,  the 
philosopher  and  the  mystic,  men  have  tried 
to  explain  what  is  implied  in  the  Incarna- 
tion of  Christ.  No  one  yet  has  succeeded  in 
doing  this  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  others; 
but  the  attempt  to  do  it  never  ceases.  It 
has  appeared  to  the  religious  consciousness 
of  twenty  centuries  that  in  the  nature  of  this 
unexampled  Person  who  loved  to  call  Him- 
self the  Son  of  Man  there  must  surely  be 


94        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

more  significance  than  that  of  a  mere  "hu- 
man accident  of  remarkable  beauty  and 
exemplary  serviceableness."  *  Every  effort 
has  been  made  to  abandon  the  search  into 
the  depths  of  Christ's  Personality,  on 
the  ground  that  the  mind  thereby  is  led 
from  the  firm  basis  of  history  into  peril- 
ous speculation.  Excesses  of  dogmatic  zeal 
have,  from  time  to  time,  repelled  from  this 
search  some  of  the  most  pure  and  reverent 
minds  in  Christendom.  But  always  the 
minds  whose  ethical  quality  has  been  most 
like  His  own  have  found  themselves  return- 
ing to  the  attempt  to  see  more  clearly  into 
those  depths  that  evidently  underlie  the 
nature  of  the  Son  of  Man,  as  if  attracted 
by  His  question:  "Whom  do  men  say  that 
I,  the  Son  of  Man,  am  ?"  I  have  ventured 
upon  no  formal  statement  concerning  the 
inner  meaning  of  the  nature  of  the  Son  of 
Man,  —  those  esoteric  correspondences  of 
His  Spirit  with  the  essence  of  the  Infinite 
which  to  some  of  us,  in  our  own  private 
thinking,  form  the  very  essence  of  our  reli- 
gious belief.  I  have  only  suggested  that  the 
true  meaning  of  the  Incarnation  Idea  may 

1  Cf .  Lecture  II. 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE  95 

be  that  the  Unseen  Infinite  looks  out  upon 
us  from  the  seen.  That  Idea,  the  suggestion 
of  unseen  perfection,  we  recognize  as  pre- 
sent approximately  in  nature,  in  the  noblest 
souls  around  us,  and  at  times  dimly  present 
in  our  own  subconscious  experience.  If  we 
can  permit  ourselves  to  believe  that  Christ 
may  be  the  perfect  expression  of  the  Incar- 
nation Idea,  that  through  Him  the  personal 
Infinite  looks  out  upon  us  and  reveals  itself 
clearly;  then  the  mental  attitude  of  Christ 
toward  the  world  at  large  takes  on  this 
enormous  significance,  that  it  is  identical 
with  the  attitude  of  God.  Christ's  impar- 
tial interest  in  humanity,  Christ's  sense 
of  the  unqualified  value  of  human  life, 
Christ's  vision  of  the  essential  unity  of  the 
race,  give  us  a  standard  for  imitation  that  is 
final  because  it  is  Divine.  He  who  can  see 
the  world  as  Christ  sees  it,  who  can  regard 
it  with  Christ's  breadth  of  vision  and  sym- 
pathetic interest,  who  sees  the  race  as  one 
and  accords  love  and  honor  to  all  its  mem- 
bers, becomes,  so  far  forth,  a  Godlike,  be- 
cause a  Christlike,  soul. 

With   this    restatement    of   my   general 
point  of  view,  I  approach  the  subject  of  the 


96        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

present  Lecture:  "The  Essential  Unity  of 
the  Human  Race."  With  the  general  na- 
ture of  popular  and  scientific  opinion  on 
this  subject  I  may  assume  that  my  present 
auditors  are  acquainted;  more  especially 
with  the  active  discussions  that  were  called 
forth  in  connection  with  the  establishment 
of  evolution  as  a  principle  interpreting  the 
phenomena  of  life.  The  Apostle  Paul  was 
possibly  the  most  commanding  mind  of  his 
time  that  undertook  an  interpretation  of 
the  Christian  ideal  of  the  unity  of  the  race. 
His  brilliant  contemporary,  Seneca,  was, 
possibly,  the  chief  impersonation  of  the  in- 
tense moral  earnestness  of  a  non-Christian 
philosophy  that  rose  to  a  kindred  conception. 
Lightfoot  has  brought  before  us  vividly 
the  common  aspirations  of  these  two  great 
souls.  When  the  old  national  barriers  had 
been  overthrown,  and  petty  states  with  all 
their  interests  and  ambitions  had  crumbled 
into  the  dust,  the  longing  eye  of  the  Greek 
philosopher  wandered  over  the  ruinous 
waste,  until  his  range  of  view  expanded  to 
the  ideal  of  a  world-wide  state,  which  for 
the  first  time  became  a  possibility  to  his 
intellectual  vision,  when  it  became  also  a 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE  97 

want  to  his  social  instincts.  The  language 
of  Seneca  well  illustrates  the  nature  of  this 
cosmopolitan  ideal:  "  We  are  members  of  a 
vast  body.  Nature  made  us  kin,  when  she 
produced  us  from  the  same  things  and  to 
the  same  ends.  I  will  look  upon  all  lands 
as  belonging  to  me,  and  my  own  land  as 
belonging  to  all.  I  will  so  live  as  if  I  knew 
that  I  am  born  for  others,  and  on  this  ac- 
count I  will  give  thanks  to  nature.  She 
gave  me  alone  to  all  men,  and  all  men  to 
me  alone.  I  well  know  that  the  world  is 
my  country.  Nature  bids  me  assist  men. 
Wherever  a  man  is,  there  is  room  for  doing 
good."1 

In  harmony  with  these  utterances,  yet 
more  lofty  and  more  distinct  because  made 
concrete  through  his  relation  to  Christ, 
the  Apostle  Paul  announces  his  view  of 
the  unity  of  the  race.  "God  Himself  giv- 
eth  to  all  life,  and  breath,  and  all  things ; 
and  He  made  of  one  every  nation  of  men 
for  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the  earth."2 
"Man  is  renewed  unto  knowledge  after 
the  image  of  Him  that  created  him :  where 

1  Cf.  Lightfoot,  Epistles  of  St  Paul,  Philippians,  pp.  306,  307. 

2  Acts  xvii.  25,  26. 


98        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

there  cannot  be  Greek  and  Jew,  circum- 
cision and  uncircumcision,  barbarian,  Scyth- 
ian, bondman,  freeman:  but  Christ  is  all, 
and  in  all."  '  "  To  the  Jews  I  became 
as  a  Jew,  that  I  might  gain  Jews ;  to  them 
that  are  without  law,  as  without  law,  that 
I  might  gain  them  that  are  without  law. 
To  the  weak  I  became  weak,  that  I  might 
gain  the  weak:  I  am  become  all  things 
to  all  men,  that  I  may  by  all  means  save 
some." 2  Thus  do  these  two  companion 
souls  of  the  first  century  (whether  inde- 
pendently or  by  common  consent  it  matters 
not),  Seneca  the  Stoic,  Paul  the  Christian, 
speak  in  terms  of  the  ideal  concerning 
what  would  be  in  principle  a  Civitas  Dei, 
a  world-state  of  God,  in  which  the  essential 
unity  of  the  race  might  be  worked  out  to 
its  glorious  conclusions.  But  Seneca  and 
St.  Paul  knew  little  of  the  real  world  as 
we  know  it.  They  knew  immediately  the 
countries  about  the  Mediterranean;  and, 
dimly,  a  shadow  land  of  legend-like  infini- 
tude, stretching  every  way  beyond.  Camel 
trains   from  the   East,   fair-haired  barba- 

1  Cf.  Col.  iii.  10,  11. 

2  Cf.  1  Cor.  ix.  20-22. 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE  99 

rians  from  the  north,  might  suggest,  but 
could  not  define,  the  race  problems  locked 
in  the  fastnesses  of  that  unexplored  im- 
mensity, the  habitable  world.  When  one 
measures  the  pure  cosmopolitanism  of 
their  ideals  against  the  narrow  scope  of 
their  knowledge,  one  feels  that  upon  both 
of  those  kingly  minds  there  rested  an 
inspiration  from  God.  For  after  many 
centuries,  and  under  the  stimulation  of  the 
Revival  of  Learning,  the  Western  know- 
ledge of  the  world  remained  deficient  and 
grotesque.  One  has  only  to  examine  the 
maps  that  preceded  modern  cartography 
to  have  evidence  of  the  monstrous  distor- 
tions and  misapprehensions  that  vitiated 
the  world-knowledge  of  a  relatively  late 
period  of  English  thought.  The  eccentric 
courses  chosen  by  the  marine  explorers  of 
the  Elizabethan  age,  in  the  search  after 
new  routes  to  India,  are  typical  of  mental 
and  moral  eccentricities  touching  methods 
of  approaching  the  East  that  still  survive 
in  an  age  of  steamships,  submarine  tele- 
graphs, and  admiralty  charts.  A  curious 
inconsistency  followed  the  Protestant  Re- 
formation in  Holland  and  England.     By 


100      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

means  of  the  Reformation  the  Bible  was 
admitted  to  general  use  and  became  a 
source  of  public  knowledge.  By  degrees 
the  doctrine  of  its  verbal  inerrancy  was 
established  and  long  remained  unques- 
tioned. The  cosmopolitan  brotherhood 
announced  by  St.  Paul  and  the  absolute 
unity  of  the  human  race  announced  in 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  were  theoreti- 
cally admitted  to  bind  the  conscience.  Yet, 
in  fact,  Dutch  Protestantism  and  English 
Protestantism,  rigidly  orthodox  at  home, 
rejected  even  the  show  of  evangelistic  pur- 
pose that  accompanied  the  earlier  Portu- 
guese and  Spanish  explorations  of  the  East, 
and  proceeded  to  set  at  naught  the  ideals 
of  St.  Paul  and  ignore  the  cosmogony  of 
Genesis,  by  forming  East  India  Compa- 
nies, dispatching  armed  expeditions,  and 
establishing  fortified  stations  to  invade, 
to  persecute,  to  plunder,  and  to  pollute 
Oriental  communities,  whose  impressions 
of  Christendom  were  identified  thereby  with 
acts  of  tyranny,  extortion,  and  debauchery. 
No  darker  chapter  of  moral  obsessions 
exists  in  the  annals  of  the  West.  The 
historical  basis  of  my  statements  has  been 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         101 

brought  to  light,  chiefly  through  research 
in  official  documents  and  correspondence. 
Had  the  East  been  filled  with  beasts  or 
devils  rather  than  with  men  and  women 
of  a  common  humanity  with  our  own, 
there  could  not  have  been  shown  less 
consideration  for  rights  and  feelings  than 
was  shown  in  many  proceedings.  Charters 
may  be  revoked  and  companies  dissolved, 
but  traditions  live  in  the  wounded  heart  of 
the  East,  springing  up  in  belated  resurrec- 
tions of  responsive  animosity  or  subsisting 
in  sullen  antagonism  toward  a  faith  that 
preaches  love  and  practices  injustice.  No 
nobler  challenge  can  be  offered  to  the 
social  conscience  of  the  West  than  that  it 
shall,  in  the  light  of  our  fuller  knowledge 
of  world  conditions  and  our  clarified  con- 
ception of  humanity,  make  atonement  for 
past  offenses  against  our  Eastern  brothers. 
What  opportunity  is  here  for  the  higher 
ethics  of  commercialism  to  vindicate  itself 
in  the  Orient;  for  friends  of  education  to 
give  on  the  same  scale  of  imperial  magnifi- 
cence as  has  been  established  in  America, 
that  the  blessings  of  the  higher  learning 
may  be  multiplied  abroad !   What  a  calling 


102      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

unto  service  is  here  for  young  men  whose 
breadth  of  culture  has  saved  them  from 
race  prejudice;  whose  humanitarian  devo- 
tion dominates  their  life-purpose;  whose 
chivalrous  loyalty  to  Christ  commits  them 
to  clear  the  reproach  that  has  been  cast 
upon  His  Name! 

The  whole  subject  of  the  essential  unity 
of  the  race,  together  with  the  feelings  and 
duties  growing  from  that  fact,  may  be  said 
to  have  come  to  the  modern  world  in  a  new 
light  through  the  researches  of  the  past  sixty 
years  in  the  field  of  anthropology,  including 
especially  the  classifications  made  in  that 
branch  of  the  science  of  anthropology  which 
is  known  as  ethnology,  and  treats  of  races 
and  peoples,  the  natural  and  artificial  divi- 
sions of  the  human  species.  No  one  re- 
sult has  been  accepted  unanimously  as  the 
outcome  of  these  interesting  researches. 
The  students  of  ethnology  divided  on  the 
fundamental  question:  Do  the  variations 
observable  in  the  several  branches  of  the 
world's  population  indicate  separate  and 
distinct  species,  and  if  so,  how  many  dis- 
tinct species ;  or  is  there  in  all  the  world 
but  one  species,  one  race  of  mankind,  which 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         103 

maintains  its  indefectible  and  essential 
unity  beneath  the  vast  range  of  superficial 
variation?  Among  those  who  have  con- 
cluded against  the  essential  unity  of  the 
race,  the  widest  divergence  of  opinion  is  to 
be  found  as  to  the  principles  of  classification 
to  be  employed  in  ascertaining  the  bounda- 
ries of  distinct  species,  and  as  to  the  number 
of  such  species.  One  recalls  the  interesting 
remark  of  Mr.  Darwin  in  the  seventh  chap- 
ter of  the  "Descent  of  Man:  "x  "Man  has 
been  studied  more  carefully  than  any  other 
animal,  and  yet  there  is  the  greatest  pos- 
sible diversity  among  able  judges  whether 
he  should  be  classed  as  a  single  species  or 
race,  or  as  two  (by  Virey),  as  three  (by 
Jacquinot),  as  four  (by  Kant),  as  five  (by 
Blumenbach),  as  six  (by  Buff  on),  as  seven 
(by  Hunter),  as  eight  (by  Agassiz),  as 
eleven  (by  Pickering),  as  fifteen  (by  Bory 
St.  Vincent),  as  sixteen  (by  Desmoulins), 
as  twenty-two  (by  Morton),  as  sixty  (by 
Crawford),  or  as  sixty -three  (by  Burke)." 
The  latest  published  classification,  I  be- 
lieve, is  Deniker's,in"The  Races  of  Man," 

1  New  York,  1896,  p.  174. 

2  London,  1900. 


104      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

which  makes  twenty-nine  races   and  sub- 
races  in  five  main  divisions. 

While  these  discussions  have  gone  on  for 
many  years,  the  outlines  of  a  deeper  truth 
have  been  growing  more  distinct;  a  truth 
so  comprehensive,  so  elemental,  that  in  its 
presence  questions  of  classification  no 
longer  disturb  our  conviction  of  the  essen- 
tial unity  of  the  race.  That  truth  is  the 
principle  of  evolution,  which,  while  reor- 
ganizing modern  thinking  about  the  origin 
of  man,  has  made  it  possible  for  men  of 
intellectual  insight  to  hold  the  unity  of  the 
race  on  scientific  grounds  as  well  as  on  re- 
ligious and  social  grounds.  Like  the  utter- 
ance of  a  prophet  are  the  words  of  Mr. 
Darwin  (dating  as  far  back  as  1871)  :x 
"The  question  whether  mankind  consists 
of  one  or  several  species  has  of  late  years 
been  much  discussed  by  anthropologists, 
who  are  divided  into  two  schools.  Those 
who  do  not  admit  the  principle  of  evolution 
must  look  at  species  as  separate  creations, 
or  as  in  some  manner  distinct  entities. 
Those  naturalists,  on  the  other  hand,  who 
admit  the  principle  of  evolution,  and  this  is 

1  Op.  cit.,  pp.  176-180. 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         105 

now  admitted  by  the  majority  of  rising 
men,  will  feel  no  doubt  that  all  the  races  of 
men  are  descended  from  a  single  primitive 
stock.  We  may  conclude  that  when  the 
principle  of  evolution  is  generally  accepted, 
as  it  surely  will  be  before  long,  this  dispute 
will  die  a  silent  and  unobserved  death." 
It  is  contrary  to  my  purpose  to  hazard  any 
observations  in  the  field  of  science,  where 
I  am  not  qualified  to  enter,  and  where  no 
dogmatic  utterance  from  me  could  escape 
the  charge  of  presumption.  But  I  may  be 
permitted  to  testify,  as  a  layman,  to  the 
manner  in  which  some  of  my  most  cherished 
beliefs  regarding  life  and  humanity  have 
been  fertilized  by  implications  connected 
with  the  principle  of  evolution;  especially 
my  belief  in  an  essential  unity  underlying 
all  the  divergent  forms  of  human  life  and 
extending  into  the  mysterious  regions  of 
thought  and  feeling. 

No  theoretical  conclusion  as  to  the  unity 
of  the  race  can  be  relied  upon  to  produce 
in  us  feelings  corresponding  to  the  world- 
sympathy  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  must  be  a 
conviction  tested  by  fact.  By  Him  that 
mental    attitude    toward    the    world    was 


106      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

maintained,  not  in  academic  solitude,  but 
throughout  a  life  of  contact  with  facts 
and  with  prejudices.  The  genuineness  of 
Christ's  attitude,  as  representing  not  theory 
but  conviction,  is  proved  by  His  reverent 
treatment  of  humanity,  by  His  world-con- 
sciousness in  teaching,  by  His  vision  of 
purpose  when  advancing  to  a  sacrificial 
death,  and  when  sending,  by  means  of  apos- 
tolic messengers,  to  the  uttermost  bounds  of 
the  known  earth,  His  gospel  of  a  redeemed 
humanity. 

Hence  my  purpose,  in  the  remainder  of 
this  Lecture,  is  to  discuss  on  practical 
grounds,  the  possibility  of  developing  in 
ourselves  a  world-consciousness,  as  broad 
and  free  from  prejudice,  as  reverent  and 
sympathetic,  as  unembarrassed  by  tradi- 
tion as  that  of  Christ;  and  of  doing  this  in 
the  face  of  practical  conditions  that  have 
made  it  for  many  difficult,  for  many  im- 
possible, to  look  forth  upon  the  enormous 
variations  in  human  character  and  condi- 
tion that  diversify  the  modern  world,  yet  see 
and  welcome  beneath  them  all,  the  evidence 
of  essential  unity,  and  the  obligations  and 
possibilities  suggested  by  that  evidence. 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         107 

That  there  are  important  considera- 
tions, affecting  our  own  personal  efficiency, 
involved  in  the  cultivation  of  an  adequate 
world-consciousness,  will  be  questioned  only 
by  those  who  have  failed  to  make  a  com- 
parative study  of  individuals.  When  we 
measure  a  human  spirit  that  has  learned 
to  say  with  Seneca:  "I  will  so  live  as  if  I 
knew  that  I  am  born  for  others.  I  well 
know  that  the  world  is  my  country.  Wher- 
ever a  man  is,  there  is  room  for  doing 
good;" — when,  I  say,  we  measure  such  a 
spirit  against  one  that  remains  immured 
within  some  straitened  cell  of  ancestral 
provincialism,  the  sense  of  being  in  the 
presence  of  relative  personal  values  is  in- 
voluntary. However  much  we  may  love 
the  provincial,  and  acknowledge  his  local 
worth,  we  feel  in  the  other  the  vigor  of  a 
purpose,  the  warmth  of  a  love,  the  author- 
ity of  a  gift,  that  calls  us  out  from  our  hid- 
ing-places of  selfishness  to  walk  at  liberty 
as  sons  of  God.  More  acute  is  this  sense 
of  relative  values  if,  in  the  provincial,  has 
occurred  the  frequent  doom  of  self-centred 
repression,  the  mental  impoverishment 
that   begets   the   embittered   spirit   of   an 


108      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

Ishmaelite.  The  life,  shut  in  upon  itself, 
estimating  values  by  a  standard  of  self- 
interest,  absorbed  in  the  local  and  the  in- 
cidental, robbed  of  opportunity  to  breathe 
the  free  air  of  the  open  world,  falls  a  prey 
to  prejudices  and  fixed  opinions,  to  un- 
reasoned dislikes  and  unverified  beliefs. 
There  are  few  sights  more  deplorable 
than  the  entanglement  of  young  manhood 
in  the  birthright  of  Ishmael;  accepting 
without  protest  some  ancestral  race  pre- 
judice or  some  provincialism  of  current 
opinion,  despising  before  it  knows,  or 
hating  by  hearsay  what  it  has  not  seen; 
dooming  itself  to  a  superficial  youth,  a 
selfish  manhood,  a  narrow  old  age,  a  short 
and  shadowed  memory.  What  can  be 
more  unlike  to  this  than  a  mind  imbued 
with  the  world-sympathy  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 
It  approaches  the  world  without  hostile 
or  contemptuous  prepossessions;  it  claims, 
with  Seneca,  the  world  as  its  country,  and 
prepares  to  support  its  claim  by  service; 
it  trusts  to  love  to  rend  the  veil  of  local 
differentiation  and  reveal  the  common 
heart  of  the  race,  the  inner  shrine  of  life. 
It  reasons  from  its  own  subliminal  intima- 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         109 

tions  of  God  and  immortality  —  to  kin- 
dred depths  in  all  other  souls,  and  learns  to 
reverence  humanity  by  what  it  finds  within 
itself.  It  counts  humanity  the  more  divine 
because  without  monotony,  therein  being 
a  more  homogeneous  revelation  of  Him 
who  fulfills  Himself  in  many  ways.  What 
vigor  of  purpose,  what  warmth  of  love, 
what  authority  of  insight,  what  scope  of 
power,  in  such  a  life!  This  is  the  cosmo- 
politan, the  citizen  of  the  world,  having  the 
similitude  of  a  son  of  man ! 

The  cultivation  of  such  a  world-con- 
sciousness, until  it  becomes  not  occasional 
but  constant,  is  complicated  by  difficulties 
which  are  matters  of  fact,  and  as  such 
entitled  to  full  and  fair  consideration. 
The  believer  in  the  principle  of  evolution 
may,  without  great  difficulty,  accept  in 
theory  a  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  the  race; 
but  his  embarrassments  in  transmuting 
that  theoretical  opinion  into  a  working 
attitude  of  mind  and  a  genuine  sentiment 
of  heart,  are  real.  In  the  First  Epistle  of 
St.  John  is  a  passage  of  much  shrewdness, 
pointing  out  that  a  religion  which  in  prin- 
ciple worships  God  but  cannot  transmute 


110      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

that  worship  into  the  service  of  humanity, 
because  humanity  presents  such  uninviting 
aspects,  is  not  an  adequate  form  of  religion. 
"He  that  loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he 
hath  seen,  cannot  love  God  whom  he  hath 
not  seen."  After  the  same  manner  of 
reasoning,  theoretical  belief  in  the  unity 
of  the  race  is  unserviceable  unless  it  sur- 
vives in  the  presence  of  the  facts.  He  who 
believes,  as  an  evolutionist,  that  the  race 
is  one,  cannot  experience  full  moral  and 
social  impulse  of  that  belief,  until  he  holds 
it  experimentally,  from  first-hand  know- 
ledge of  the  world  at  large. 

An  experimental  and  reasoned  belief  in 
the  essential  unity  of  the  human  race  is 
something  more  profound  and  less  depend- 
ent on  emotion  than  are  those  intuitions 
of  fellowship  and  similarity  which  we 
experience  in  our  local  relations  with 
others.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  we  may 
not  have  intuitional  perception  of  race 
unity  and  world  fellowship,  for  that  indeed 
I  believe  and  experience.  I  can  truly  say 
that  in  intellectual  and  spiritual  inter- 
course with  Orientals  who,  by  anthropolo- 
gists,   would   be   classified   under   several 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         111 

different  categories,  I  have  felt  that  human 
kinship  which  scarcely  may  be  described 
by  a  term  less  strong  than  consanguinity 
of  the  soul.  And  I  have  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  in  themselves  the  consciousness 
of  kinship  with  me  was  not  less  powerful. 
I  therefore  by  no  means  intend  to  exclude 
the  intuitional  in  indicating  data  for  an 
experimental  belief  in  world  fellowship. 
But  this  I  would  point  out:  that  the 
grounds  for  this  belief  include  a  much 
wider  field  of  observation  than  is  covered 
by  those  common  instincts  and  by  that 
intuitive  consciousness  of  relations  which 
determine  local  spheres  of  kinship.  I 
mean  such  instances  as  the  specialized 
instincts  that  produce  friendship  and  love 
between  individuals;  the  sense  of  a  com- 
mon original  that  accompanies,  with  or 
without  love,  the  primary  degrees  of  fam- 
ily connection;  the  impression  of  solidarity 
that  conditions  neighborhood  life ;  the  feel- 
ings of  brotherhood  or  companionship  that 
grow  out  of  similarity  of  occupation  or 
training,  as  between  students  of  one  of 
the  fine  arts,  or,  in  a  broader  manner  be- 
tween men  within  the  academic  circle ;  the 


112      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

subtle  instinct  of  patriotism  that,  in  the 
hour  of  impending  war,  welds  seventy  mil- 
lions of  souls  into  one;  the  yet  more  sub- 
tle instinct  of  the  racial  group,  that  for 
two  hundred  years  has  kept  Anglo-Saxon- 
ism  floating  unamalgamated  on  the  sea 
of  Asiatic  life,  like  oil  upon  water.  None 
of  these,  not  even  the  broadest,  is  identi- 
cal with  the  experimental  and  reasoned 
belief  in  the  essential  unity  of  the  human 
race.  That  is  something  more  profound 
and  less  dependent  on  emotion  than  are 
these.  It  rests  on  grounds  that  are  but  in 
part  intuitive,  as  when  Shakespeare  says,  in 
"Troilus  and  Cressida,"  "  One  touch  of  na- 
ture makes  the  whole  world  kin,"  and  that 
are  much  more  established  by  observation, 
reflection,  and  sympathetic  intercourse. 
This  being  so,  it  is  not  difficult  to  realize 
why,  to  many  minds,  the  practical  con- 
ception of  essential  unity  in  the  human 
race  is  as  unwelcome  as  it  is  incredible. 
Theoretically  evolutionary  science  may  ap- 
pear to  affirm  it;  theologically  the  Bible 
may  appear  to  defend  it;  but  too  many 
minds,  hospitable  to  science  and  reverent 
toward  the  Bible,  disclaim  as  repugnant 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         113 

to  sensibility  and  humiliating  to  pride  the 
mental  attitude  and  the  disposition  of  heart 
toward  alien  races  which  assume  common 
feelings,  common  possibilities,  and  com- 
mon rights  in  the  great  affairs  of  human 
existence. 

I  shall  enumerate  some  of  the  reasons 
for  this  instinctive  antagonism  to  the  idea 
of  racial  unity.  One  of  the  most  effective 
has  been  lack  of  knowledge.  The  present 
degree  of  ease  with  which  the  visitation  of 
the  East  is  accomplished  from  Europe  and 
America  is  a  late  accession  to  the  luxury  of 
civilization.  Our  readiness  to  adopt  new 
conditions  acts  as  an  illusion,  concealing  the 
long  ages  through  which  the  thought  life  of 
the  Western  world  was  developing  and  its 
formative  impressions  were  deepening  in 
almost  total  ignorance  of  the  history,  the 
ideals,  the  soul  of  the  East.  The  place  of 
correct  knowledge  was  taken  by  a  wonder- 
land of  fables  mixed  with  incorrect  observa- 
tions and  fortuitous  deductions  of  explorers 
or  adventurers,  while  the  lusts  of  unethical 
commercialism  and  the  depravity  of  con- 
scienceless ambition  completed  the  mental 
distortion  begun  by  ignorance.    Our  know- 


114      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

ledge  of  the  East,  gathered  in  the  past  hun- 
dred years,  is  as  yet  too  recent,  too  undi- 
gested, too  inadequate,  and  too  powerfully 
affected  by  conscious  or  unconscious  preju- 
dice, to  form  a  basis  of  induction.  Still  it  is 
true  that  we  see  the  East  through  a  glass 
darkened  by  smoke  from  smouldering  fires 
of  past  disfavor;  that  we  know  the  East 
but  in  part,  and  that  that  partial  knowledge 
is  like  light  broken  and  bent  in  a  faulty  lens. 
Scientifically  and  strategically  we  know  the 
East  fairly  well:  its  fauna  and  its  flora,  its 
coast  line  and  harbor  defenses,  its  deserts 
and  veldts,  its  handicrafts  and  products,  its 
palaces  and  temples,  its  classics  and  my- 
thologies. But  the  soul  of  the  East,  the 
inner  God-consciousness  of  the  East,  its 
hidden  spiritual  potency,  its  grief  and  joy, 
its  need  and  aspiration  —  the  human  ele- 
ments of  the  East,  whereby  it  is  not  a 
spectacle,  not  a  problem,  but  life,  living  in 
its  own  right  —  that  we  know  not  at  all. 
Some  Westerners  have  indeed  essayed  to 
set  forth  this  inner  thought  life  of  the  East, 
to  interpret  Oriental  emotion  and  impulse, 
to  discover  the  psychology  of  polytheism, 
and  the  mystical  values  that  lie  like  clouds 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         115 

behind  clouds  in  the  inner  depths  of  pan- 
theism. For  the  most  part  these  interpreta- 
tions have  been  formal  and  distant,  and, 
from  the  Eastern  point  of  view,  misleading; 
because  those  making  them  were  more 
scholarly  than  sympathetic,  more  critical 
than  reverent. 

Another  reason  for  instinctive  antago- 
nism to  the  idea  of  racial  unity  is  found 
in  the  obvious  differences  that  impress  the 
Western  observer  of  life  and  manners  in 
the  East.  He  finds,  upon  arrival  in  coun- 
tries with  which  the  West  long  has  held 
official  and  residential  relations,  unexpected 
identities,  surprising  proofs  of  the  power  of 
Occidental  civilization  to  impress  its  ma- 
terial aspects  upon  remote  centres  of  life. 
Spires  of  English  churches  rise  among 
gopuras  of  Hindu  temples  and  minars  of 
mosques;  a  Russian  cathedral  crowns  the 
highest  hill  in  Tokyo.  The  electric  trolley 
car  flies  through  the  suburbs  of  Colombo, 
and  wins  its  appropriate  number  of  human 
sacrifices  from  among  the  white-robed  Sin- 
halese. As  one  approaches  Shanghai  by 
the  river,  or  Cawnpore  by  rail,  torrents  of 
black  smoke  pour  from  tall,  brick  chimneys, 


116        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

as  in  the  manufacturing  towns  of  Lan- 
cashire or  Massachusetts.  In  the  sweet 
evenings  of  the  season,  upon  the  Maidan 
in  Calcutta  or  the  Marina  in  Madras,  the 
pattering  hoofs  of  well-groomed  horses,  the 
twinkling  beauty  of  polished  broughams, 
remind  one  of  Hyde  Park  on  an  afternoon 
in  May.  So  far  forth  the  Western  traveler 
feels  at  home  and  says,  judging  life  by  his 
provincial  standards :  "  All  things  continue 
as  they  were  from  the  beginning."  But,  as 
he  lifts  his  eyes  from  the  small  circle  on 
which  the  West  has  stamped  its  image  and 
superscription,  and  looks  forth  upon  the  un- 
Europeanized  expanse  of  Oriental  society, 
he  is  amazed  at  the  novelties  and  contrasts. 
Apparently  he  has  entered  another  world 
of  aspect,  habit,  proportion,  and  purpose. 
Nothing  remains  measurable  by  the  old 
law  of  relations.  Color  questions  stand 
inverted,  brown  skins  or  yellow  being  more 
honorable  than  white.  Costume  breaks 
from  conventional  propriety,  and  riots  in 
eccentricities,  positive  and  negative.  The 
old  social  order  of  his  fathers  changes,  giv- 
ing place  to  a  new  order,  which  yet  is  older 
than  the  old.    Mystical  symbolism  fills  all 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         117 

the  silent  East  with  suppressed  religious 
passion;  incalculable  and  terrible  to  one 
who  has  conceived  only  the  smooth  ortho- 
doxy of  Western  churchmanship.  Types 
of  civilization  appear  that  no  unprepared 
Western  mind  can  classify  under  any  cate- 
gory of  the  useful  or  the  excellent.  Brah- 
mins, more  imperious  and  more  impene- 
trable behind  the  sacred  cord  upon  the 
naked  breast,  than  knight  crusaders  be- 
hind morions  and  pectoral  shields  of  steel ; 
priests  of  Buddha,  with  yellow  robes  and 
fungus-like  umbrellas,  as  moving  flowers 
of  the  tropics,  flitting  in  and  out  of  the 
jungle;  ascetics  and  devil- worshipers,  with 
bloodshot  eyes,  faces  smeared  with  ashes, 
hair  braided  with  clay,  beating  hollow- 
voiced  drums,  gathering  alms  from  the  ever- 
willing,  ever-reverent  throng.  The  Western 
looks  on  these  types;  estrangement  mixed 
with  scorn  rises  within  him;  of  himself  he 
asks,  "And what  have  I  to  do  with  these  ? " 
Such,  among  many  others,  are  the  obvious 
contrasts  set  up  in  the  East  against  every 
Western  preconception  of  order,  utility,  and 
truth.  I  would  suggest  them  to  your  minds 
at  their  full  value.    Nor  would  I  evade  the 


118      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

fact  of  contrasts  less  obvious  to  the  super- 
ficial observer;  contrasts  in  feeling,  in  the 
manner  of  conceiving  entities  of  thought,  in 
the  scale  of  life-values,  in  temperamental 
states  and  tendencies.  So  far  from  evading 
these,  and  their  bearing  upon  race  unity,  I 
propose  to  make  them  the  subject  of  my 
next  Lecture,  because  of  my  conviction  that 
in  our  clearest  apprehension  of  these  and  of 
their  meaning  lies  the  path  to  a  grander  and 
more  serviceable  theory  of  unity  than  has 
yet  been  fairly  examined.  But,  at  present, 
it  is  these  contrasts,  the  more  obvious  and 
the  less  obvious,  that  foster  in  many  Occi- 
dental minds  repugnance  to  the  thought  of 
race  unity,  and  to  the  practical  implications 
contained  therein. 

I  must  advert  to  another  cause  for  this 
instinctive  antagonism,  namely,  race  pre- 
judice. It  is  in  this  case  less  easy  than  in 
the  former  case  to  give  expression  to  the 
characteristics  of  the  reason  alleged.  Race 
prejudice  is  a  psychological  problem  of  ex- 
traordinary interest.  Undoubtedly  it  has 
alliances  with  some  of  the  noblest  senti- 
ments and  with  some  of  the  most  ancient 
experiences  of  humanity.     The   Jews,  in 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         119 

the  age  of  their  theocracy,  raised  race  pre- 
judice to  the  level  of  religious  duty.  They 
were  bound  in  honor  to  Jehovah  to  culti- 
vate it  in  themselves,  to  instill  it  in  their 
children.  An  epitome  of  their  schooling  in 
the  duty  of  segregation  and  in  the  cultiva- 
tion of  disdain  for  other  races  is  given  in 
that  magnificent  trumpet-call  of  Isaiah:1 
"Thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  My  people 
went  down  at  the  first  into  Egypt  to  sojourn 
there:  and  the  Assyrian  oppressed  them 
without  cause.  Now  therefore,  .  .  .  Depart 
ye,  depart  ye,  go  ye  out  from  thence,  touch 
no  unclean  thing;  go  ye  out  of  the  midst  of 
her;  be  ye  clean,  ye  that  bear  the  vessels 
of  the  Lord."  There  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt  that  race  prejudice,  as  instilled  into 
the  Jews  for  a  purpose,  resulted  in  good  as 
a  means  of  cultivating  moral  and  religious 
principles  that  were  of  interest  and  advan- 
tage ultimately  to  the  whole  world.  But, 
like  the  institution  of  sacrifice,  it  fulfilled  its 
end  and  was  displaced  in  the  larger  purpose 
of  Christ.  When  the  Jew,  Simon  Peter, 
undertook  to  justify  his  shrinking  from  a 
Roman,  on  the  ground  that  he  had  never 

1  Cf.  Isaiah  Hi. 


120      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

yet  defiled  himself  by  contact  with  the  cere- 
monially ostracized,  he  was  rebuked  with 
the  significant  message  "What  God  hath 
cleansed,  make  not  thou  common." *  That 
the  rebuke  had  opened  his  eyes  to  a  larger 
world  relation  appears  in  his  frank  avowal : 
"Of  a  truth  I  perceive  that  God  is  no 
respecter  of  persons." 2  It  may  not  be  de- 
nied that  race  prejudice  is  allied  to  certain 
necessary  instincts  that  work  for  the  gen- 
eral good.  A  specializing  love  and  pride 
for  one's  own;  a  loyal  affinity  for  one's  an- 
cestral house;  an  intuitive  feeling  of  the 
superior  excellence  of  one's  native  land;  a 
rational  dislike  for  the  commingling  of  one's 
blood  with  the  blood  of  alien  and  dissimilar 
nations,  are,  if  held  in  moderation,  aspects 
of  social  feeling  that  serve  good  ends.  Yet 
any  one  of  them  may,  in  a  moment,  pass 
over  into  race  prejudice  and  become  un- 
ethical and  so  unchristian. 

The  special  weaknesses  of  race  preju- 
dice are  that  it  flourishes  in  the  absence  of 
knowledge ;  that  it  loves  the  darkness  of  a 
traditional  feeling  rather  than  the  light  of 
an  educated  conviction;  and  that  it  tends 

1  Cf.  Acts  x.  15.  2  Cf.  Acts  x.  34. 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         121 

to  dimness  of  moral  insight  and  the  degen- 
eration of  love  into  selfishness.  There  is  no 
one  of  our  social  instincts  more  eccentric  in 
its  operations,  more  curiously  interwoven 
with  reason,  judgment,  and  emotion. 

Before  leaving  this  part  of  my  subject,  I 
must  name  one  other  cause  for  the  instinc- 
tive antagonism  found  in  many  minds 
against  race  unity  as  a  practical  doctrine 
of  society.  I  refer  to  national  egotism. 
By  instinct  the  Anglo-Saxon,  in  Britain 
or  America,  is  a  Pharisee.  He  goes  into 
the  temple,  looks  God  in  the  face,  and 
says  without  a  blush,  "I  thank  Thee,  that 
I  am  not  as  the  rest  of  men."  He  is  the 
ethnic  Pharisee  of  the  world.  Not  the 
Teuton,  not  the  Slav,  not  the  Latin,  not 
the  Mongolian,  not  the  Japanese,  not  the 
Hindu,  by  his  utmost  effort  raises  the 
sense  of  superiority  to  so  high  a  power 
as  is  reached  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  consti- 
tutionally and  with  ease.  He  believes  in 
himself  and  knows  himself  by  his  fruits. 
He  stands  within  the  towering  structure  of 
a  civilization  created  by  his  own  energies, 
and  says  to  the  world:  "If  you  seek  my 
monument,  look  about  you."     He  outvies 


122      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

Israel  in  conceiving  himself  to  be  a  chosen 
people.  He  deems  himself  invincible  and 
altogether  necessary  to  the  world.  He  can- 
not imagine  the  world  to  subsist  without 
the  Anglo-Saxon.  When  one  of  his  own 
poets  warns  him  of  the  vanished  glory  of 
past  empires,  "lest  he  forget,"  he  frowns 
when  he  does  not  laugh.  One  might  use 
concerning  him  the  gorgeous  parable  of 
leviathan,  for  he  is,  in  his  thought,  Levia- 
than of  the  Latter  Days:  compact,  inven- 
tive, eager,  invulnerable,  armed  to  the 
teeth. 

"His  strong  scales  are  his  pride, 
Shut  up  together  as  with  a  close  seal. 
They  are  joined  one  to  another; 
They  stick  together,  that  they  cannot  be  sundered. 
His  eyes  are  like  the  eyelids  of  the  morning. 
Out  of  his  mouth  go  burning  torches, 
And  sparks  of  fire  leap  forth. 
His  breath  kindleth  coals, 
And  a  flame  goeth  forth  from  his  mouth. 
In  his  neck  abideth  strength, 
And  terror  danceth  before  him. 
His  heart  is  as  firm  as  a  stone; 
Yea,  firm  as  the  nether  millstone. 
When  he  raiseth  himself  up,  the  mighty  are  afraid; 
By  reason  of  consternation  they  are  beside  themselves. 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         123 

If  one  lay  at  him  with  the  sword,  it  cannot  avail, 

Nor  the  spear,  the  dart,  nor  the  pointed  shaft. 

He  counteth  iron  as  straw, 

And  brass  as  rotten  wood. 

He  laugheth  at  the  rushing  of  the  javelin. 

He  maketh  the  deep  to  boil  like  a  pot: 

He  maketh  the  sea  like  ointment. 

He  maketh  a  path  to  shine  after  him; 

One  would  think  the  deep  to  be  hoary. 

Upon  earth  there  is  not  his  like, 

That  is  made  without  fear. 

He  beholdeth  everything  that  is  high: 

He  is  king  over  all  the  sons  of  pride."  * 

Such  is  the  Anglo-Saxon;  Leviathan  of 
the  Latter  Days;  king  over  all  the  sons 
of  pride.  Until  his  national  egotism  be 
chastened  and  brought  into  subjection  to 
the  spirit  of  Christ,  the  gulf  between  East 
and  West  stands  fixed;  the  vision  of  a 
unified  world  tarries! 

I  said,  earlier  in  this  Lecture,  that  "an 
experimental  and  reasoned  belief  in  the 
essential  unity  of  the  human  race  is  some- 
thing more  profound  and  less  dependent 
on  emotion  than  are  those  intuitions  of 
fellowship  and  similarity  which  we  experi- 
ence in  our  local  relations  with  others." 

1  Cf.  Job  xli. 


124      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

At  this  conviction  I  have  arrived  after  a 
number  of  years  largely  devoted  to  a  study 
of  Oriental  life  and  consciousness,  together 
with  a  period  of  observation  in  India, 
Ceylon,  and  Japan,  which,  while  too  brief 
to  produce  authoritative  results,  was  en- 
riched by  somewhat  exceptional  opportu- 
nities for  unfettered  intercourse  with  culti- 
vated life  in  the  Orient,  upon  a  basis  of 
mutual  confidence  and  friendliness.  I  am 
prepared  to  express  the  opinion  that  if  one 
shall  go  into  these  remote  regions  with  a 
mind  disburdened  of  race  prejudice  and 
eager  for  evidence  on  which  to  build  belief 
in  the  essential  unity  of  the  race,  he  is 
bound  to  find  that  evidence  in  abundance 
lying  ready  to  his  hand.  In  this  opinion 
I  state  nothing  that  is  original  or  new. 
Others,  whose  observations,  conducted  in 
the  same  sympathetic  spirit,  were  scien- 
tific and  sustained,  have  formed  a  like 
opinion,  and  have  found  the  East  prolific 
in  evidence  for  its  support.  That  evidence 
has  appeared  not  exclusively  among  races 
possessing  an  indigenous  civilization,  like 
the  Japanese  or  the  Aryan  races  of  Hindu- 
stan, but  also  in  quarters  of  the  globe  and 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         125 

among  people  surrendered  by  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  West  to  the  last  profundity  of 
barbarism.  As  long  ago  as  1836,  Charles 
Darwin,  then  in  the  unspent  keenness  of 
his  powers  of  discernment,  made  a  voy- 
age as  naturalist  upon  H.  M.  S.  Beagle 
to  study  the  distribution  of  organic  beings 
inhabiting  South  America.  He  proceeded 
to  Terra  del  Fuego,  confessedly  the  ulti- 
mate point  of  human  race-degeneration. 
Long  afterward  he  makes  this  record:1 
"Although  the  existing  races  of  man  differ 
in  many  respects,  yet,  if  their  whole  struc- 
ture be  taken  into  consideration,  they  are 
found  to  resemble  each  other  closely  in  a 
multitude  of  points.  Many  of  these  are 
so  unimportant  or  of  so  singular  a  nature, 
that  it  is  extremely  improbable  that  they 
should  have  been  independently  acquired 
by  aboriginally  distinct  species  or  races. 
The  same  remark  holds  good  with  equal 
or  greater  force  with  respect  to  the  numer- 
ous points  of  mental  similarity  between 
the  most  distinct  races  of  man.  The 
American  aborigines,  negroes,  and  Euro- 
peans are  as  different  from  each  other,  in 

1  Cf.  op.  cit.,  p.  178. 


126      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

my  mind,  as  any  three  races  that  can  be 
named;  yet  I  was  incessantly  struck,  whilst 
living  with  the  [aborigines  of  Terra  del 
Fuego]  on  board  the  Beagle,  with  the 
many  little  traits  of  character,  showing 
how  similar  their  minds  were  to  ours;  and 
so  it  was  with  a  full-blooded  negro  with 
whom  I  happened  once  to  be  intimate." 
If  such  evidence  of  essential  unity  was  dis- 
coverable between  the  chastened  mind  of 
culture  and  the  darkened  intellect  of  sav- 
agery, it  is  not  surprising  that  my  inter- 
course with  the  ancient  and  high  civiliza- 
tions of  the  East  yielded  every  proof  of  the 
same  unity.  Indeed,  it  would  be  impos- 
sible for  me  to  overstate  the  abundance 
and  conclusiveness  of  this  evidence,  offered 
on  every  hand  to  one  who  had  no  reserves 
of  prejudice,  no  bewilderment  amid  the 
startling  and  incessant  play  of  contrasts, 
no  shrinking  from  color  or  caste,  no  faith 
in  the  reasonableness  of  Western  pride, 
no  theory  of  psychic  differentiation  —  no- 
thing but  the  love  and  confidence  of  a  man 
toward  his  human  friends.  The  same- 
ness of  humanity  seemed  to  me  so  ab- 
solute that  I  saw  no  reason  why,  granting 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         127 

an  exchange  of  training  and  environment, 
they  might  not  become  as  I,  and  I  as  they. 
This  experience  of  sameness,  or  unity,  was, 
as  I  have  explained,  not  grounded  chiefly 
in  emotion.  It  became  an  experimental  and 
reasoned  belief  resting  upon  various  kinds 
of  evidence. 

The  inventive  capacity  of  the  brain  and 
the  productive  capacity  of  the  hand  I  be- 
lieve to  be  broad  human  endowments  as 
distinguished  from  national  idiosyncrasies. 
The  arts  of  design  and  the  arts  of  pro- 
duction are  not  characteristic  of  any  one 
part  of  the  world  as  against  other  parts. 
It  is  quite  true  that  circumstances  have 
intervened  variously  to  foster  or  to  retard 
the  practical  development  of  these  arts  at 
different  points  in  the  world.  It  is  also 
true  that  temperamental  variations  between 
peoples  inhabiting  opposite  sides  of  the 
globe  affect  what  may  be  called  the  accent 
of  invention  and  production,  determining 
whether  the  emphasis  shall  be  set  chiefly 
on  the  qualities  of  beauty  or  chiefly  on  the 
qualities  of  utility.  These  particulars  are 
incidental.  They  resemble  the  tempera- 
mental distribution  of  talents  in  a  family 


128      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

of  brothers,  where  one  is  a  musician,  one 
an  engineer,  one  a  philosopher.  The  evi- 
dence for  racial  unity  appears  in  that  the 
faculties  of  suggestion  and  design  as  ap- 
plied to  the  material  of  nature,  and  the  re- 
sources of  manual  skill  and  power  whereby 
the  creative  suggestions  of  the  mind  are 
worked  out  into  form  and  fact,  represent 
a  field  of  experience  where  there  is  no  East, 
no  West,  but  only  man,  made  in  the  image 
of  that  one  conceiving  and  producing 
Mind,  "of  whom  are  all  things."1  By 
reason  of  temperamental  variations,  the 
nature  and  effects  of  which  I  would  con- 
sider in  my  next  Lecture,  the  accent  of 
invention  and  production  varies.  In  the 
West  mental  suggestion  and  manual  pro- 
duction are  strongest  on  the  side  of  utility; 
in  the  East  the  same  powers  are  strongest 
on  the  side  of  beauty.  Between  the  two 
lies  no  impassable  gulf;  the  Western  intel- 
ligently enters  the  East  and  seeks  to  repro- 
duce its  beauty  of  design  and  workmanship. 
The  Eastern  perfectly  apprehends  and 
readily  assimilates  our  utilities  so  far  as 
he  deems  them  worthy  of  notice.    If  there 

1  Cf.  1  Cor.  viii.  5,  6. 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         129 

be  limitation,  it  appears  to  be  upon  us 
rather  than  upon  him.  Our  standards  of 
utility  offer  nothing  to  which  he  cannot  at 
will  attain.  His  standards  of  beauty  still 
baffle  our  power  of  assimilation.  To  this 
conclusion  I  am  led  by  a  comparative 
study  of  three  exhibitions:  The  exhibition 
of  Indian  designs  and  handicrafts  at 
Ahmedabad,  in  the  remote  native  state  of 
Gujerat,  India,  in  the  cold  season  of  1902; 
the  exhibition  of  Japanese  designs  and 
handicrafts  at  Osaka,  Japan,  in  the  spring 
of  1903;  the  General  Exhibition  at  St. 
Louis  in  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1904. 
The  former  two  exhibitions  were  strictly 
national  in  character ;  but  therein  I  found 
objects  of  utility  conceived  by  Western 
minds,  reproduced  in  perfection  by  Eastern 
hands;  delicate  instruments  of  surgery,  or 
astronomy,  or  physical  experiment ;  arms  of 
precision  for  use  in  war;  machinery  heavy 
and  light ;  vehicles  of  transportation ;  instru- 
ments of  music ;  food  preparations ;  printed 
books.  On  the  other  hand,  at  St.  Louis,  I 
found  superb  memorials  of  a  vigorous  and 
sanguine  West,  excelling  itself  in  discovery 
and  application  of  the  useful  forces  and  ma- 


130      CHRIST  AND  THE   HUMAN  RACE 

terial  of  nature,  and  clothing  those  utilities 
with  much  beauty  of  design  and  finish; 
yet  I  did  not  perceive  that  the  West  has 
been  able  to  reach  aesthetic  standards  repre- 
sented by  the  bronzes  of  Tokyo,  the  em- 
broideries of  Kyoto,  the  enamels  of  Jaipur. 
The  extraordinary  keenness  of  discern- 
ment and  analytical  power  shown  by  the 
East  in  its  estimate  of  Western  men,  mo- 
tives, and  affairs,  presents  another  kind  of 
proof  of  the  essential  unity  of  the  human 
race.  While  the  voice  of  Anglo-Saxon 
Pharisaism  and  prejudice  has  been  pro- 
claiming contemptuously  that  the  East  is 
inscrutable,  swathed  in  bands  of  imprac- 
ticable ethics  and  impossible  philosophy, 
the  modern  East  has  become  an  astute 
critic  of  the  entire  system  of  Occidentalism. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  emphasize  such  occa- 
sional examples  of  this  as  are  furnished  by 
the  book  called  "The  Indian  Eye  on  Eng- 
lish Life,"  by  Mr.  Malabari  of  Bombay,  or 
the  recent  address  before  a  Theistic  Prayer 
Union  by  the  Hon.  Mr.  Justice  Chandavar- 
kar  on  "The  Simple  Life,"  in  which  ana- 
lytical qualities  are  displayed,  carrying  the 
principle  enunciated  by  Wagner  to  conclu- 


UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE         131 

sions  more  vital  than  his  own.  One  has 
opportunities  to  note  current  phenomena 
showing  in  many  ways  that  cultivated 
Oriental  minds  find  no  difficulty  in  com- 
prehending and  judging  the  civilization  of 
the  West.  I  refer  to  editorial  discussion 
of  Occidental  subjects  in  the  Indian  and 
Japanese  daily  and  weekly  press;  to  liter- 
ary criticism  as  found  in  certain  Oriental 
reviews,  for  example,  in  the  Hindustani 
Review;  to  the  power  of  Eastern  minds 
to  express  poetic  conceptions  under  West- 
ern forms,  as  shown,  exquisitely,  by  Mrs. 
Sarojini  Naidu's  volume  of  poems  called 
"The  Golden  Threshold,"  lately  published 
in  London,  with  an  introduction  by  Arthur 
Symons;  to  the  classical  use  of  the  Eng- 
lish language  throughout  circles  of  culture 
in  India  and  Ceylon,  after  a  fashion  that 
suggests  the  style  of  Addison,  Burke,  or 
Macaulay;  to  the  cosmopolitan  type  of 
diplomacy  shown  by  Japan  in  recent  nego- 
tiations with  the  West;  and  finally,  to  the 
ease  with  which  graduates  of  Eastern  uni- 
versities discharge  the  requirements  of  Ber- 
lin, Oxford,  or  Harvard,  as  candidates  for 
the  higher  degrees. 


132      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

In  concluding  this  Lecture  on  "  The  Es- 
sential Unity  of  the  Human  Race,"  I  must 
refer  to  one  evidence  of  unity  more  subtle, 
and  possibly  more  spiritual,  than  those  be- 
fore mentioned.  When  we  enter  the  region 
of  fundamental  emotions,  the  Western  heart 
that  permits  itself  to  beat  freely  is  answered 
in  the  East  with  a  naturalness  that  first 
amazes,  then  delights.  Great  as  is  the 
West  in  the  range  and  dignity  of  its  emo- 
tions, it  learns  from  many  an  Oriental  that 
honor,  and  courage,  and  compassion,  and 
forgiveness,  and  faithfulness,  and  love  can 
be  interpreted  with  a  delicacy  of  touch  and 
a  glorious  depth  of  tone  that  speak  of  a  soul 
unconquered  by  material  ends,  mystically 
loyal  to  unseen  ideals,  believing  immea- 
surably in  the  invisible.  Is  there  anything 
inexplicable  to  the  higher  order  of  Western 
minds  in  the  essential  principle  that  runs 
through  Oriental  mysticism  ?  On  the  con- 
trary, though  we  may  reject  its  forms,  we 
give  involuntary  homage  to  its  spirit.  It  is 
the  search  of  the  soul  for  a  best  that  does 
not  depend  on  perishable  modes  of  matter, 
that  looks  not  on  things  that  are  seen,  but 
on  things  that  are  not  seen,  because  they 


UNITY  OF  THE   HUMAN  RACE         133 

only  are  eternal.  It  is  the  same  spirit  of 
faith  in  the  Invisible  that  has  lived  in  all  the 
higher  thinking  of  the  West,  in  the  Spanish 
Molinos  and  Francis  de  Sales,  in  the  Cam- 
bridge Platonists,  in  Wordsworth  and  Em- 
erson, that  will  not  be  put  off  with  the  stone 
of  physical  proof,  but  grasps  with  the  hand 
of  faith  bread  eternal,  invisible,  unprova- 
ble. It  is,  in  East  and  West,  the  one  spirit 
of  which  Tennyson, in  "The  Ancient  Sage," 
speaks  grandly :  — 

"For  nothing  worthy  proving  can  be  proven, 
Nor  yet  disproven;  wherefore  thou  be  wise, 
Cleave  ever  to  the  sunnier  side  of  doubt, 
And  cling  to  Faith  beyond  the  forms  of  Faith! 
She  reels  not  in  the  storm  of  warring  words, 
She  brightens  at  the  clash  of  '  Yes'  and  '  No,' 
She  sees  the  Best  that  glimmers  thro'  the  Worst, 
She  feels  the  Sun  is  hid  but  for  a  night, 
She  spies  the  summer  thro'  the  winter  bud, 
She  tastes  the  fruit  before  the  blossom  falls, 
She  hears  the  lark  within  the  songless  egg, 
She  finds  the  fountain  where  they  wail'd  *  Mirage ! '  " 


LECTURE    IV 

TEMPERAMENTAL    CONTRASTS    BETWEEN    EAST 
AND    WEST 

Having  discussed,  in  my  last  Lecture,  the 
Essential  Unity  of  the  Human  Race,  I  am 
to  attempt  now  the  consideration  of  those 
mental  and  spiritual  differences  which 
make  the  Eastern  world  unlike  our  own, 
and  which  are  both  interesting  and  sug- 
gestive to  him  who  is  convinced  that  the 
race,  as  a  whole,  is  one  race.  Frederic 
Amiel,  in  the  "  Journal  Intime,"  *  makes 
the  following  observation :  "  Every  man  pos- 
sesses in  himself  the  analogies  and  rudi- 
ments of  all  things,  of  all  beings,  and  of  all 
forms  of  life.  The  mind  which  is  subtle 
and  powerful  may  penetrate  these  poten- 
tialities, and  make  every  point  flash  out 
the  world  which  it  contains.  This  is  to  be 
conscious  of  and  to  possess  the  general 
life."  The  thought  is  stimulating  to  that 
buried  life  within  us  all,  which,  sometimes 

1  Cf.  London  Ed.,  1885,  vol.  i.  pp.  144,  145. 


CONTRASTS  —  EAST  AND  WEST        135 

dimly,  sometimes  vividly,  seems  to  discern 
the  universality  of  consciousness,  to  appre- 
hend and  to  be  a  part  of  all  that  is.  Mr. 
William  Inge,  in  his  extraordinarily  use- 
ful book  on  "  Christian  Mysticism,"  '  has 
pointed  out  that  the  doctrine  that  man  in 
his  individual  life  recapitulates  the  spir- 
itual history  of  the  race,  ever  has  been  a 
treasured  conception  of  mystical  thought. 
While  we  may  not  be  prepared  to  accept 
it,  we  may  acknowledge  the  helpful  sugges- 
tion contained  in  the  idea.  For,  from  the 
contrasts,  not  to  say  the  contradictions,  of 
thought  and  feeling  that  we  note  within 
the  unity  of  our  personal  self-conscious- 
ness, we  can  reason  to  the  contrasts  occur- 
ring between  persons,  or  families,  or  nations, 
or  racial  groups.  We  may  acknowledge 
these  contrasts  without  disturbing  our  con- 
viction of  underlying  unities  beneath  all 
human  life. 

The  power  of  an  individual  to  appre- 
hend and  to  be  a  part  of  the  universal  con- 
sciousness, to  feel  that  the  manifold  tem- 
peraments of  other  lives  and  races  are, 
in  a  sense,  reflected  within  himself,  is  not 

1  Cf.  New  York  Ed.,  1899,  p.  35. 


136      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

a  power  equally  possessed  by  all.  The  con- 
dition of  possessing  it  richly  is  the  culti- 
vation of  the  subjective  side  of  conscious- 
ness. To  those  who  have  lived  chiefly  in 
the  outward,  a  formal  life  of  routine,  deal- 
ing mainly  with  well-known  externals, 
traveling  back  and  forth  in  beaten  paths 
of  neighborhood  tradition,  the  range  of 
thought  contracts.  The  orbit  of  tempera- 
mental experience  diminishes ;  ability  to  un- 
derstand outlying  differences  on  the  broad 
field  of  human  life  grows  less;  creatures 
of  habit,  seeing  only  what  is  near,  under- 
standing only  what  is  commonplace;  —  the 
world,  for  such,  means  the  places,  meth- 
ods, persons,  and  value- judgments  familiar- 
ized by  custom, — the  world  of  the  local. 
Between  the  world  of  the  local  and  the 
broad  continents  of  race  life,  there  is  a 
great  gulf  fixed  for  minds  of  this  type. 
That  which  lies  beyond  the  local  is,  for 
them,  vague,  bizarre,  unthinkable.  Not 
so  with  him  in  whose  inner  being  have  been 
cultivated  elements  of  rich  subjectivity, 
whereby  he  has  been  able  to  escape  the 
deadening  monotony  of  conventionalism. 
He  feels  within  himself  the  boundless  scope 


CONTRASTS  — EAST  AND  WEST        137 

and  orbit  of  sensibility.  His  soul  is  an  or- 
ganism not  caged  behind  the  bars  of  one 
narrow,  personal  experience,  but  having 
wings  that  bear  it  out  into  the  general  life, 
where  it  becomes  all  things  to  all  men ;  wings 
that  lift  it  up  to  heights  where  it  looks  into 
souls  most  remote  and  most  unlike  itself, 
intuitively  understanding  them. 

The  sense  of  kinship  with  remote  races, 
while  it  may  be  cultivated,  is  in  essence  an 
involuntary  experience.  I  do  not  under- 
take to  account  for  it,  further  than  to  as- 
sociate it  with  a  desirable  escape  from  the 
deadening  monotony  of  conventionalism; 
especially,  escape  from  conventional  esti- 
mates of  race  value,  and  partisan  traditions 
of  race  tendency.  Emancipation  from  these 
seems  to  result  in  experiences  of  world  kin- 
ship, which  are  the  more  impressive  because 
mutually  involuntary.  It  is  one  thing  to 
urge  on  academic  grounds  the  brotherhood 
of  man;  it  is  another  to  feel  the  vivid  cor- 
respondence of  soul  forces,  beating  like 
pulses  against  one's  own  heart,  in  those 
whom  the  prejudices  of  a  thousand  gener- 
ations have  repelled  as  aliens. 

It  is  as  one  who,  in  a  measure,  has  felt  and 


138      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

feels  this  correspondence  of  soul  forces  be- 
tween the  Oriental  and  the  Occidental  con- 
sciousness that  I  speak  of  "  Temperamental 
Contrasts  between  East  and  West."  In  my 
last  Lecture,  while  defending  the  "Essen- 
tial Unity  of  the  Human  Race,"  I  dwelt, 
with  some  emphasis,  upon  obvious  external 
contrasts  to  modes  of  Western  civilization 
that  meet  one,  on  entering  the  remote  East : 
eccentricities  in  fashion,  tint,  and  fabric  of 
costume;  physical  color  contrasts;  browns 
and  yellows  of  exquisite  softness  deepen- 
ing the  skin  color,  until  the  European  com- 
plexion seems  cold  and  pallid;  mystic  sym- 
bols of  the  occult,  swung  from  the  neck,  set 
in  the  wayside  shrine,  or  imparting  awful 
personality  to  desolate  landscapes.  I  shall 
never  forget  my  first  glimpse  of  stone  idols 
bestriding  stone  horses,  on  a  South  Indian 
plain,  overgrown  with  cactus.  One  sees 
merchants  kneeling  on  the  floor  of  shops, 
and  bargaining  with  the  dignity  of  men  at 
prayer.  Here  are  Brahminy  bulls,  stroll- 
ing through  thoroughfares,  or  pausing  to 
eat  choice  morsels  in  shops  whose  owners 
watch  with  reverent  obeisances  the  spoiling 
of  their  goods.    Here  are  apes,  dwelling  in 


CONTRASTS  —  EAST  AND  WEST        139 

temples,  pampered  in  luxury,  leaping  forth 
with  outstretched  palms  demanding  gifts. 
Here  are  shrines  of  religion,  like  Tenoji's 
in  Osaka,  filled  with  garments  and  toys  of 
little  children  whose  souls  have  been  swept 
off  in  the  mysterious  current  of  death. 
Such  are  "the  obvious  contrasts  set  up  in 
the  East  against  every  Western  preconcep- 
tion of  order,  utility,  and  truth."  Yet 
these  and  a  thousand  other  picturesque  dis- 
tinctions, making  daily  life  in  the  Orient  a 
panorama  of  incredible  novelty  to  him  who 
observes  it  for  the  first  time,  are  but  out- 
ward and  visible  suggestions  of  inward  and 
invisible  distinctions,  far  more  profound. 
The  self-consciousness  of  the  East,  gov- 
erned by  immemorial  prepossessions,  comes 
at  the  problem  of  life  from  an  angle  of 
vision,  and  sets  the  accent  upon  the  worth 
of  life  under  a  standard  of  value-judgment, 
different  from  our  own,  and,  as  the  preju- 
dices of  most  Westerners  prompt  them  to 
believe,  unintelligible  to  us. 

I  know  of  no  more  conspicuous  instance 
of  the  tendency  of  prejudice  to  paralyze  the 
power  of  discernment  than  the  common- 
place Western  declaration  of  the  utter  un- 


140      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

intelligibility  of  the  East.  This  declaration 
has  been  reiterated  from  every  possible 
source  of  authority,  until  the  inscrutable 
East  has  become  a  proverb.  The  traveler, 
the  explorer,  the  missionary,  the  diploma- 
tist, the  merchant,  the  civil  officer,  the 
military  governor,  the  ethnologist,  through 
long  years  of  uncontested  affirmation, 
taught  us  to  dismiss  as  unintelligible  what 
we  could  not  denounce  as  immoral,  in  the 
Oriental  self-consciousness.  The  fatuous 
tendency  of  the  human  mind  to  let  pro- 
verbial sayings  pass  unchallenged,  and  to 
accept  a  due  proportion  of  reiteration  as 
equivalent  to  demonstration,  may  account 
for  the  venerable  fallacy  that  the  thinking 
of  the  East  is  a  fabric  whereof  the  web  is 
absurdity  and  the  woof  wickedness.  I  do 
not  undertake  to  say  that  we  are  at  present 
competent,  nor  that  we  may  for  generations 
to  come  be  able,  to  measure  adequately  the 
angle  of  vision  from  which  the  East  looks 
out  upon  life,  nor  fully  to  comprehend  the 
conclusions,  philosophical  and  ethical,  at 
which  it  arrives,  and  the  path  of  arrival. 
Above  all,  I  do  not  undertake  to  say  that 
we  have  worked  through  the  problem  of  an 


CONTRASTS  —  EAST  AND  WEST        141 

Eastern  Christianity  to  be  developed  in  the 
future,  nor  fully  have  seen  how  the  mind 
of  Christ,  which  seems  to  lend  itself  to  our 
angle  of  vision,  can  lend  itself  equally  to  the 
Eastern  angle  of  vision.  Yet  into  our  equip- 
ment for  this  majestic  study,  two  new  ele- 
ments have  come :  religious  psychology  and 
the  science  of  comparative  religion.  By 
means  of  these  new  branches  of  knowledge 
we  have  gone,  in  three  decades,  nearer  to 
the  heart  of  the  East  than  in  the  three  cen- 
turies that  went  before.  The  mind  of  the 
most  sanguine  cannot  trust  itself  to  say 
what,  in  three  decades  more,  may  be  the  fur- 
ther unfoldings  of  this,  the  most  interesting 
spiritual  problem  in  all  the  world. 

Already,  I  think,  we  are  beginning  to 
realize  that  the  problem,  as  it  stands,  is  a 
problem  of  temperamental  variations,  ex- 
pressing themselves  naturally  and  charac- 
teristically, in  East  and  West,  on  a  field  of 
humanity  which,  in  essence,  is  one  com- 
mon field.  The  race  is  one;  but  the  bro- 
thers stand  at  opposite  angles  of  vision,  each 
seeing  what  appears  to  him,  each  passing 
value- judgments  on  what  he  sees.  As  a 
matter  of  historic  fact,  the  Christian  re- 


142      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

ligion  has  been,  for  some  centuries,  the 
general  possession  of  the  West.  The  rela- 
tive assimilation  of  Christianity  by  the  West 
shows  in  some  measure  the  mission  of 
Christ  to  life  as  the  West  sees  it.  The 
question  now  in  suspense  is,  not  the  fanati- 
cal dream  of  bringing  the  Oriental  con- 
sciousness around  to  the  Western  angle  of 
vision;  it  is  the  capacity  and  power  of 
Christ  to  organize  and  ethicize  life  as  the 
East  sees  it,  from  its  angle  of  vision  and 
under  its  standard  of  value-judgments. 

That  we  may  estimate,  in  a  measure, 
what  this  problem  of  temperamental  varia- 
tion involves,  let  us,  for  the  moment,  ab- 
solve the  mind  of  all  ancestral  preferences 
and  affections;  let  us,  in  spirit,  expatriate 
ourselves,  and  come,  like  observers  from 
another  sphere,  toward  this,  our  Western 
self-consciousness.  Our  effort  is  to  com- 
pute the  Western  angle  of  vision;  to  look, 
as  strangers  to  ourselves,  through  the  West- 
ern eye,  out  upon  life.  Let  us  search  for  the 
Western  standard  of  value-judgment.  Like 
Moses,  reading  curiously  the  tablets  of 
Sinai,  let  us  read  those  commandments  of 
instinct  that  have  been  cut,  as  it  would 


CONTRASTS  —  EAST  AND  WEST        143 

seem,  by  God's  hand,  in  the  bed-rock  of 
life,  as  the  Occidental  sees  it. 

The  first  and  great  commandment  graven 
in  Western  consciousness  is  to  use  nature; 
to  utilize  its  resources;  to  value  the  sub- 
stance of  the  world,  the  wealth  on  its  surface, 
the  wealth  in  its  depths.  The  appropria- 
tion of  nature  is  instinctive  in  Occidental 
consciousness.  Things  and  their  values  are 
real ;  the  use  of  this  reality  is  fundamental. 
To  the  West  more  than  to  the  East,  the  great 
words  attributed  to  Moses  in  the  benedic- 
tion of  Joseph  seem  to  apply.  They  are 
as  an  inventory  of  a  good,  valuable  world, 
in  which  it  is  worth  while  to  live  and  delve 
and  accumulate  and  use  and  enjoy. 

"  Blessed  of  the  Lord  be  his  land; 
For  the  precious  things  of  heaven,  for  the  dew, 
And  for  the  deep  that  coucheth  beneath, 
And  for  the  precious  things  of  the  fruits  of  the  sun, 
And  for  the  precious  things  of  the  growth  of  the  moons, 
And  for  the  chief  things  of  the  ancient  mountains, 
And  for  the  precious  things  of  the  everlasting  hills, 
And  for  the  precious  things  of  the  earth  and  the  fulness 
thereof."  l 

Far  more  definitely  in  the  life  of  the  West 
than  in  that  of  the  East  does  this  magnifi- 

1  Deut.  xxxiii.  13-16. 


144      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

cent  appreciation  of  the  phenomenal  world 
find  an  echo.  To  Western  instinct  this 
world  is  a  good  world.  The  pessimism  of 
Schopenhauer,  or  Mallock's  plaintive  in- 
quiry, "Is  life  worth  living?"  enters  as  an 
alien  note  into  the  bustling  definiteness  of 
Occidental  existence.  For  most  people  it 
has  no  meaning.  They  do  not  in  the  least 
understand  it.  To  many  to  whom  it  is  not 
unintelligible  it  is  offensive;  an  intellectual 
obsession ;  an  effeminate,  fantastical  vagary. 
The  genius  of  the  Western  consciousness 
fastens  upon  the  entities  of  the  phenomenal 
world  as  real.  All  is  as  it  seems  to  be. 
Self  is  real;  and,  to  the  common  mind,  that 
self-reality  is  set  off  from  a  God-reality 
which  is  much  like  a  larger  self.  Personal 
distinctions  between  man  and  God  are  real, 
and  just  as  they  seem  to  be.  Around  these 
real  persons  lies  a  real  world,  to  be  known, 
subdued,  used ;  a  world  of  open  beauty  and 
hidden  resource,  calling  man  out  to  itself 
by  ten  thousand  voices  of  invitation.  To 
those  voices  man  answers  without  hesitancy 
and  with  all  his  powers.  These  things, 
substances,  forces  of  the  world,  are  life;  to 
many,  enthralled  by  their  power,  they  are 


CONTRASTS  — EAST  AND  WEST        145 

the  totality  of  life.  They  are  the  solid 
ground  —  the  terra  firma  —  of  existence. 
Beyond  them  beats  the  surf  of  an  unfath- 
omed  ocean,  where  hangs  the  sullen  fog- 
bank  of  the  unknown.  Wherever  in  West- 
ern life  the  Christian  religion  has  nourished 
the  instinct  of  immortality,  there  is  inter- 
est, often  deep  interest,  in  that  which  lies 
behind  the  fog-bank  of  the  unknown,  yet  not 
interest  strong  enough  to  neutralize,  often 
not  strong  enough  to  regulate,  the  funda- 
mental instinct  to  believe  in  and  to  value 
things. 

The  utilization  of  nature  springs  from 
this  instinct  of  reality.  By  degrees,  rudi- 
mentary occupations  of  prehistoric  times 
are  superseded  by  definite  devotion  to  in- 
dustrial policy,  fixed  on  the  conquest  of 
nature  to  the  uses  of  man.  This  growth 
and  continuity  of  industrial  purpose  has 
stimulated  the  development  of  science  in 
the  West,  and  has  extended  scientific  enter- 
prise to  the  remotest  lands  of  the  world. 
Industrial  arts  have  become  involved  with 
ideas  of  national  progress  through  competi- 
tion, producing  complex  and  momentous 
conditions.    The  distribution  and  interplay 


148      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

of  economic  interests  has  raised  political 
issues  of  the  first  magnitude  throughout  the 
West  and  wherever  the  West,  on  any  pre- 
text, comes  in  contact  with  the  East.  Be- 
hind the  whole  organism  of  industrial  pro- 
gress leaps  in  the  heart  of  the  West  a 
passion  of  energy  —  a  belief  in  the  value 
of  doing  —  an  unconquerable  will  to  do. 
Wherever  this  ardor  for  the  doing  of  deeds 
and  the  winning  of  things  is  tempered  and 
broadened  by  culture,  it  produces  the  finest 
fruits  of  Occidental  civilization;  ambition 
held  in  check  by  moral  responsibility,  power 
and  achievement  consecrated  to  useful  ends. 
But  when  the  elemental  passion  for  things 
takes  possession  of  Western  minds  un- 
chastened  by  intellectual  and  moral  culture, 
it  produces,  among  rich  and  poor  alike,  a 
bitter  and  repellent  type  of  selfishness.  The 
philosophy  of  egoism  becomes  elemental, 
even  brutal,  in  its  simplicity.  Natural  in- 
stincts control  the  will.  The  value  of  life  is 
assessed  in  terms  of  physical  possession :  to 
get,  to  have,  to  hold,  to  eat,  to  drink,  to  buy, 
to  sell,  to  know  sensuous  pleasure.  The 
field  of  knowledge  is  bounded  by  com- 
mercial requirement.     The   zest  to  know 


CONTRASTS  —  EAST  AND  WEST        147 

the  knowable  world  is  not  for  the  sake  of 
pure  knowledge,  but  in  order  to  wrest 
from  nature  her  secrets,  that  she  may  be 
further  subdued  to  use,  more  securely- 
yoked  to  the  chariot  of  utilitarianism. 
Spiritual  knowledge  is  ignored.  One  short, 
fierce  creed  of  naturalism  suffices  for  the 
uncultured  rich  and  the  illiterate  poor: 
"Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we 
die."  The  elemental  instinct  for  things, 
working  itself  out  to  the  opposite  conclu- 
sions of  success  and  failure,  forms  the  per- 
petual tragedy  of  modern  Occidentalism. 
On  every  hand  we  may  trace  to  its  bitter 
conclusion  the  working  of  this  philosophy  of 
materialistic  egoism,  in  the  illiterate  poor, 
whose  effort  to  possess  the  visible  objects 
of  desire  has  failed.  I  doubt  if  there  is  any 
product  of  Anglo-Saxon  civilization  more 
miserable  to  look  upon  than  its  degenerate 
poverty,  unrelieved  by  education,  unmiti- 
gated by  religion,  without  God  and  with- 
out hope  in  the  world.  I  doubt  if,  even  in 
aboriginal  paganism,  there  is  any  repre- 
sentative of  humanity  more  to  be  pitied,  or 
more  destitute  of  compensation,  than  that 
last  residuum  of  illiterate  poverty  that  is 


148        CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

flung  out  as  refuse  from  the  terrible  ma- 
chine of  Western  utilitarianism.  We  know 
the  type:  sodden  with  drink,  corrupt,  pro- 
fane, embittered  against  heaven  and  earth, 
without  ideals,  without  imagination,  with 
no  reserves  of  physical  vigor  or  spiritual 
consolation.  Between  this  last  stage  of 
social  degeneracy  in  the  West  and  the  cor- 
responding stage  in  the  East,  there  is  an 
extraordinary  contrast  in  favor  of  the  latter. 
Extreme  poverty  and  total  illiteracy  in  the 
East  are  a  thousand  times  more  plentiful 
than  in  the  West,  yet  to  the  last  there  clings 
to  them  a  certain  dignity  that  carries  the 
suggestion  of  a  great  inheritance.  In  my 
observations  among  the  poorest  of  the  poor 
in  India,  I  have  had  occasion  to  marvel  at 
the  indefectible  dignity  of  poverty.  It  sur- 
vives penury,  and  clothes  with  singular,  and 
often  noble,  gravity,  the  shrinking  frailness 
of  the  afflicted.  I  have  observed  it  among 
famine  sufferers,  lepers  and  plague  patients, 
among  wanderers  of  the  bazaar,  and  feeble 
pilgrims  of  the  mofussil.  Poorer  than  the 
poorest  tramp  on  our  Western  highways, 
these  Oriental  children  of  sorrow  carry 
with  them  a  treasure  that  the  world  cannot 


CONTRASTS  —  EAST  AND  WEST        149 

give  nor  take  away.  Menaced  by  bodily 
starvation,  they  appear  to  have  meat  to  eat 
that  the  world  knows  not  of.  I  attribute 
this  to  the  indestructibility  of  the  religious 
imagination  as  an  element  of  consciousness 
in  Orientals.  Not  things,  but  ideas,  are  their 
choicest  treasures.  The  Vedic  classics  are 
read  and  expounded  by  itinerant  teachers, 
who  gather  around  them  at  the  cross-roads 
or  in  the  market-place  eager  groups,  tech- 
nically illiterate,  and  saturate  their  spirits 
with  the  sublimities  of  ancient  philosophy 
and  tradition.  The  elemental  majesty  of 
these  ancestral  beliefs  has  been  assimilated, 
and  provides  fuel  for  the  religious  imagina- 
tion with  which,  temperamentally,  the  East 
is  enriched.  Karma;  reincarnation;  the 
reality  of  the  unseen  and  the  unreality  of 
the  seen ;  the  imperialism  of  the  will  of  God, 
are  concepts  that  have  given  tone  to  con- 
sciousness, producing  a  characteristic  and 
unchangeable  world-view.  Even  where  vice 
is  joined  with  illiterate  poverty  in  the  East, 
there  does  not  appear  the  same  total  sub- 
mergence of  the  man  in  the  beast  that 
marks  the  last  corruptible  stage  of  animal- 
ism in  the  West.    To  the  end  the  suggestion 


150      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

of  a  higher  ancestry  and  a  higher  destiny 
clings  to  the  Oriental,  like  an  order  of  rank. 
I  do  not  say  that  wickedness  is  less  wicked 
in  the  East,  nor  that  it  is  less  gross  on  some 
of  the  lower  levels  of  practice;  but  I  am 
confident  that  a  better  understanding  of  the 
ethical  consciousness  of  the  East  is  much 
to  be  desired  in  the  interest  of  fairness,  and 
as  a  corrective  of  Occidental  Pharisaism. 
"  Nolite  judicare,  ut  non  judicemini"  is  a 
timely  commandment  for  such  as,  secure  in 
the  theory  of  Western  virtue,  bring  a  rail- 
ing accusation  against  the  morals  of  the 
depressed  classes  in  the  Eastern  world. 

The  bitterness  of  poverty  in  the  Western 
world,  when  unrelieved  by  education  and 
religion,  is  the  fruit  of  the  unsatisfied  pas- 
sion for  things.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
game  passion,  inflamed  by  success,  works 
to  the  opposite  extreme  in  the  mind  of 
the  uncultured  rich.  The  intensity  of  the 
instinct  to  possess,  and  to  increase  posses- 
sions, is  producing  a  striking  human  type : 
the  secularized,  uncultured  Anglo-Saxon  of 
the  modern  world.  Practical,  virile,  suc- 
cessful, unscrupulous,  irreverent,  he  emerges 
on  the  field  of  competition.    He  has  broken 


CONTRASTS  —  EAST  AND  WEST        151 

away  from  the  semi-Oriental  ecclesiastical 
mysticism  of  the  Latin  races.  In  other 
words,  the  Church  and  the  Christian  faith 
have  lost  their  power  over  him,  although 
he  may  retain  nominal  relations  therewith. 
He  has  his  first  free  chance  in  all  history 
to  show  what  manner  of  person  he  is.  He 
exhibits  his  power  to  press  a  policy  of  utilita- 
rianism, like  a  wedge-formation  in  the  foot- 
ball field,  straight  through  opposing  prin- 
ciples of  social  ethics.  He  ignores  powers 
and  sanctions  of  the  unseen  world.  To 
him,  the  goodness  of  life  is  its  equivalent 
in  terms  of  physical  luxury  and  financial 
strength.  For  him,  a  man's  life  consisteth 
in  the  abundance  of  the  things  that  he  pos- 
sesseth.  Life  is  sweet,  with  the  zest  of  a 
fierce  joy  of  acquisition.  And,  in  the  un- 
pitying  paradox  of  selfishness,  life's  sweet- 
ness for  himself  deadens  his  sense  of  its 
sweetness  for  others.  The  feverish  zest  of 
living  unto  self  begets  brutal  indifference  to 
the  life  of  others.  This  is  the  most  cruel 
note  of  a  materialized  civilization.  It  is 
what  Matthew  Arnold  calls  "the  worship  of 
machinery."  It  supplants  reverence  and 
love  for  human  personality.     It  sears  the 


152      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

conscience,  so  that  crimes  against  brother- 
hood are  condoned  in  the  name  of  progress 
and  business  necessity.  His  factories  pre- 
pare debased  products.  He  evades  law  to 
secure  their  distribution,  caring  not  whom 
they  may  injure.  His  speeding  vehicles 
crush  the  innocent  unwary.  His  exagger- 
ated notion  of  sport  stimulates  gladiatorial 
instincts.  His  luxury,  ungoverned  by  eth- 
ical solicitude,  degenerates  into  a  social  of- 
fense. Oblivion  of  the  dead  adds  to  the 
heartlessness  of  living.  He  is  a  stranger  to 
the  reverence  that  is  born  of  meditation. 
God  is  not  in  his  thoughts.  Pessimism,  the 
last  revenge  of  life  upon  those  who  deal 
unjustly  with  the  world,  completes  the  hard- 
ening of  the  heart,  the  devitalizing  of  con- 
science. Such  are  the  extremes  to  which 
the  elemental  passion  for  things,  the  bare 
philosophy  of  material  energy,  works  itself 
out  into  failure  or  success.  On  the  one 
hand  are  the  illiterate  poor,  who,  blindly 
governed  by  instinct,  having  no  guide  into 
the  spiritual  realm,  know  no  higher  destiny 
than  the  struggle  for  things.  By  misfor- 
tune or  by  fault  they  have  lost  their  share, 
and,  losing  that,  have  lost  hope,  courage, 


CONTRASTS  — EAST  AND  WEST        153 

self-respect.  They  sink  into  the  depths. 
No  man  cares  for  their  souls.  As  the  beasts 
that  perish,  they  die  and  return  to  their 
dust.  On  the  other  hand  are  the  uncul- 
tured rich.  By  evading  the  softening  influ- 
ence of  culture  and  the  restraints  of  piety, 
by  concentrating  their  energy  in  the  passion 
for  things,  they  gain  their  portion  in  this 
present  life.  They  are  filled  with  good. 
Their  eyes  stand  out  with  fatness.  They 
have  more  than  heart  could  wish.  They 
are  gorged  with  prosperity.  They  are  not 
in  trouble  as  other  men.  They  are  clothed 
with  pride  as  with  a  garment.  These  two 
extremes,  hopeless  poverty  and  conscience- 
less wealth,  are  not  representative  of  West- 
ern civilization.  They  represent  its  morbid 
possibilities,  under  conditions  of  abnormal 
separation  from  the  inspiration  and  re- 
straints of  culture  and  religion.  Between 
these  extremes  is  the  great  mean  of  practi- 
cal usefulness  and  progress,  where  lies  the 
strength  of  the  Western  world,  its  substan- 
tial excellence,  its  helpful  mission  and  mes- 
sage to  humanity. 

I  have  said,  in  effect,  that  the  fundamen- 
tal principal,  the  first  and  great  command- 


154      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

ment  in  Western  thinking,  is  the  use  and 
enjoyment  of  reality.  To  the  Occidental 
the  physical  world  is  real,  all  things  in  it 
are  real,  all  personal  distinctions  are  real. 
The  moral  world  is  comprehended  in  the 
same  scheme  of  reality;  right  and  wrong  are 
real;  and,  back  of  them,  as  the  real  source 
of  moral  distinction,  is  a  personal  God, 
whose  relation  to  man  is  actual  and  imme- 
diate. "Man's  chief  end,"  in  a  world  of 
reality,  "is  to  glorify  God  and  to  enjoy 
Him  forever."  This  real  world  is  for  real 
men,  with  real  powers;  powers  of  investi- 
gation, of  assimilation,  of  application,  of 
accumulation,  of  action.  Upon  this  basis 
of  reality,  the  Western  world  has  evolved 
a  civilization  which  has  contributed,  and 
is  contributing  enormously,  to  the  general 
good,  within  the  lines  set  by  culture  and 
religion.  It  is  a  matter  of  thrilling  interest 
to  reflect  upon  the  train  of  consequences 
issuing  from  the  first  axiom  of  Occidental 
consciousness:  the  usableness  of  a  real 
world.  To  it  we  owe  the  passion  for  geo- 
graphical discovery  that  swept  over  Europe 
after  the  Revival  of  Learning,  and  begot  the 
intrepid  voyagers  of  Portugal,  Spain,  Eng- 


CONTRASTS  —  EAST  AND  WEST        155 

land,  and  Holland.  Their  exploits,  under- 
taken in  pursuit  of  many  subsidiary  ends, 
were,  in  essence,  an  expression  of  the  Euro- 
pean instinct  to  use  the  world.  That  in- 
stinct is  the  psychological  clue  to  history. 
The  nations  of  the  West  are  subduers  of 
the  world,  not  by  reason  of  political  caprice 
or  the  fortunes  of  war,  but  through  tem- 
peramental necessity.  The  genius  for  ex- 
ploration, discovery,  and  appropriation  of 
the  knowable  earth  is  a  trait  in  the  blood. 
Modern  arctic  and  antarctic  researches 
bear  witness  to  the  activity  of  an  instinct 
that  cannot  slumber  while  one  corner  of  the 
globe  remains  unknown,  unvisited,  unused. 
The  political  and  economic  policies  of 
Western  nations  in  the  Oriental  world  may 
offend  our  sense  of  righteousness,  neverthe- 
less it  remains  true  that  there  are  psychic 
forces  ordained  of  God  in  the  Occidental 
consciousness  projecting  it  Eastward.  It 
is  no  vain  optimism  to  trust  that,  with 
the  growth  of  culture,  the  total  outcome 
of  world-development  by  the  West  in  the 
East  will  be  for  the  betterment  of  the 
whole  human  race.  The  same  axiomatic 
conviction  that  the  world  is   for  the  use 


156      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

of  man  lies  back  of  those  scientific  inves- 
tigations of  nature  and  utilitarian  appli- 
cations of  science  to  life  which  are  the 
characteristic  marks  of  Western  civiliza- 
tion. Discovery  of  chemical  elements; 
classification  of  animal  and  vegetable  spe- 
cies; mathematical,  physical,  and  psycho- 
logical researches;  increase  of  knowledge 
and  improvement  of  method  in  engineer- 
ing, transportation,  medicine,  surgery,  irri- 
gation, forestry,  education,  social  economy, 
civil  law :  these  and  many  other  splendid 
enrichments  of  man's  physical  and  mental 
inheritance  flow  from  the  deepest  springs 
of  temperamental  necessity,  accomplishing 
a  providential  purpose  of  good  for  the 
world.  That  these  researches  into  the  ma- 
terial of  the  usable  world  are  sometimes 
conducted  in  a  theoretical  spirit  which  takes 
no  account  of  ethical  ends,  and  that  the 
ardor  of  applied  science  proceeds  chiefly 
from  self-interest,  does  not  diminish  the 
providential  value  of  race  temperament  in 
the  evolution  of  mankind  and  the  better- 
ment of  the  world.  The  effects  of  this 
axiomatic  sense  of  the  usable  world  on 
the  character  and  spirit  of  Western  nations 


CONTRASTS  — EAST  AND  WEST        157 

are  conspicuous  and  interesting.  It  has 
given  power,  self-confidence,  and  precision. 
It  has  produced  strong  initiative,  rugged 
adherence  to  purpose,  resourcefulness  in 
emergency,  courage  in  the  face  of  difficulty. 
These  qualities  are  nurtured  only  in  an 
atmosphere  of  reality,  through  which  the 
prizes  of  life  are  discerned  at  short  range. 
If  one  asks  the  moral  outcome  from  this 
characteristic  attitude  of  Western  civiliza- 
tion, it  must  be  admitted  that  it  is  both 
good  and  evil.  The  plain  and  obvious  real- 
ity of  visible  things  has  stimulated  indus- 
trial qualities,  has  enhanced  the  value  of 
time,  has  erected  standards  of  social  and 
financial  integrity  which,  though  occasion- 
ally obscured  by  the  prevalence  of  luxury 
and  speculation,  do  represent  the  moral 
ideal  of  the  majority.  On  the  other  hand, 
from  the  same  instinctive  passion  for  things 
have  come  the  gravest  blemishes  and  faults 
of  Occidental  civilization.  The  ferocity  of 
unethical  competition,  the  lust  after  ter- 
ritorial expansion,  the  spirit  of  aggression 
and  domination,  are  evils  that  appear  at 
times  with  intensity,  turning  the  light  of 
otherwise  splendid  material  progress  into 


158      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

the  darkness  of  oppression,  injustice,  and 
extortion.  These  are  the  morbid  exagger- 
ation of  powers  which,  restrained  and  coor- 
dinated by  culture  and  religion,  are  indis- 
pensable for  the  development  of  the  world. 
Yet,  when  all  its  faults  are  taken  at  their 
full  value,  and  its  excesses  noted,  the  fact 
remains  that  good  rather  than  evil  is  the 
prevalent  effect  of  Western  civilization 
upon  the  world.  The  noblest  contribution 
yet  made  to  the  organized  life  of  mankind 
by  any  portion  of  the  race  is  the  sense  of 
ethical  reality,  the  reality  of  right,  the  real- 
ity of  duty.  It  has  come  as  part  of  the 
general  sense  of  world-reality  that  is  charac- 
teristic of  Occidental  consciousness.  The 
Western  accent  of  thought  upon  the  reality 
of  nature,  of  man,  of  a  personal  God,  cul- 
minates in  ethical  reality,  the  definiteness 
of  right  as  distinguished  from  wrong.  The 
foundation  of  this  idea  is,  unquestionably, 
Semitic  monotheism.  Out  of  Persia  and 
Palestine  emerged  the  human  conscious- 
ness of  an  ethical  God.  But  the  tempera- 
mental characteristics  of  the  Occident  were 
congenial  soil  for  that  sublime  conception. 
It  flourished  in  the  West,  nurtured  by  its 


CONTRASTS  — EAST  AND  WEST        159 

constitutional  love  of  definiteness.  The 
personal  ethical  quality  in  God  seemed,  to 
the  Western  mind  and  conscience,  to  utter 
itself  in  the  eternal  morality  of  law.  The 
inherent  righteousness  of  the  infinite  Holy 
One,  speaking  from  Sinai  and  the  Mount 
of  Beatitude  in  Divine  commandments, 
seemed,  to  the  mind  of  the  West,  to  speak 
perpetually  in  the  sanction  of  human  law 
and  the  personal  imperative  of  the  enlight- 
ened conscience.  The  Western  conception 
of  justice  is  founded,  not  in  caprices  of  gov- 
ernment, but  in  inherent  and  eternal  ethical 
distinctions,  the  basis  and  norm  of  which  is 
in  the  very  Being  of  God.  Faber's  words 
express  the  essence  of  Occidental  con- 
sciousness in  the  matter  of  right  and  wrong 
and  their  respective  destinies  in  a  rational 
universe :  — 

"For  right  is  right,  since  God  is  God, 
And  right  the  day  must  win; 
To  doubt  would  be  disloyalty, 
To  falter  would  be  sin." 

The  glory  of  the  West  is  not  chiefly  her 
power  over  nature,  her  vast  research  into 
the  secret  places  of  knowledge,  her  ingen- 
ious application  of  force  to  production,  nor 


160      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

her  initiative  in  social  progress.  It  is  her 
sense  of  the  reality  of  ethical  distinctions  as 
inherent  in  the  ethical  nature  of  God.  The 
humiliation  of  the  West  is  her  readiness  to 
forget  the  divineness  of  duty  at  the  bidding 
of  material  self-interest;  to  submerge  the 
knowledge  of  righteousness  beneath  the 
overvaluation  of  possessions;  to  practice 
the  lower  ethics  of  utility  while  holding  in 
theory  the  higher  ethics  of  principle;  sub- 
ordinating the  divine  conception  of  an  ideal 
right  to  the  charm  and  fascination  of  things. 
The  lust  for  things  has  been  the  undoing  of 
Western  nations  and  Western  individuals. 
It  is  at  this  point  in  our  discussion  of 
temperamental  contrasts  that  we  are  pre- 
pared to  realize  wherein  consists  the  funda- 
mental difference  between  East  and  West. 
The  existence  of  a  profound  temperamen- 
tal contrast  is  felt  by  all  thoughtful  mem- 
bers of  the  Western  world  who  breathe  the 
atmosphere  of  the  Orient.  I  have  already 
pointed  out  that  that  difference  is  not  ac- 
counted for  when  we  take  note  of  pictur- 
esque variations  in  color,  costume,  and 
mode  of  life  which  attract  the  eye  of  an 
observer.    The  deeper  contrast  appeals  to 


CONTRASTS  —  EAST  AND  WEST        161 

the  soul  rather  than  to  the  eye.  Evidently 
it  resides  in  consciousness,  involves  world- 
view,  and  represents  the  outlook  of  reason 
and  understanding.  No  ethnic  question 
is,  on  the  whole,  more  interesting  than  this: 
Why  is  there  this  contrast  between  the 
active,  forceful,  practical,  progressive  West, 
and  the  calm,  visionary,  introspective,  in- 
different East?  I  think  that  it  is  possible 
to  give  an  answer  to  this  interesting  ques- 
tion: The  East  is  as  it  is,  because  at  the 
root  and  base  of  its  self-consciousness  is 
the  conviction  of  the  relative  unreality  of 
things  that  are  seen.  In  making  this  general 
statement  concerning  the  complex  East, 
wherein  every  religious  type  is  found,  from 
the  Sannyasin  of  India  to  the  efficient, 
modern  Churchman  of  Japan,  I  am  not 
indifferent  to  obvious  local  distinctions. 
Nevertheless,  the  soul  of  the  East  is  essen- 
tially one  soul.  He  who  comes  near  to  the 
Oriental  consciousness  at  any  point,  in  a 
spirit  of  sympathetic  appreciation,  feels  its 
mystic  power,  its  affiliation  with  the  unseen 
and  the  Absolute.  In  his  "  Ideals  of  the 
East," 1  Mr.  Kakuso  Okakura,  long  regarded 

1  John  Murray,  London,  1903,  p.  1. 


162      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

by  Asiatics  as  the  foremost  living  authority 
on  Oriental  archaeology  and  art,  well  says : 
"Asia  is  one.  The  Himalayas  divide,  only  to 
accentuate,  two  mighty  civilizations, — the 
Chinese  with  its  communism  of  Confucius, 
and  the  Indian  with  its  individualism  of  the 
Vedas.  But  not  even  the  snowy  barriers 
can  interrupt  for  one  moment  that  broad 
expanse  of  love  for  the  Ultimate  and  Uni- 
versal, which  is  the  common  thought-inher- 
itance of  every  Asiatic  race,  enabling  them  to 
produce  all  the  great  religions  of  the  world, 
and  distinguishing  them  from  those  mari- 
time peoples  of  the  Mediterranean  and  the 
Baltic,  who  love  to  dwell  on  the  Particular, 
and  to  search  out  the  means,  not  the  ends,  of 
life."  It  is  because  of  this  "broad  expanse 
of  love  for  the  Ultimate  and  Universal" 
overspreading  Asiatic  life  that  one  can  make 
with  safety  a  generalization  upon  the  basic 
element  in  the  Oriental  consciousness.  It 
is  a  conviction  of  the  relative  unreality  of 
things  that  are  seen.  That  which  to  the 
Occidental  is  most  real,  tangible,  and  actual, 
most  obviously  the  end  to  live  for,  is  to  the 
Oriental  consciousness  a  negligible  quan- 
tity, because  relatively  unreal.    Things,  ob- 


CONTRASTS  —  EAST  AND  WEST        163 

jects,  persons,  physical  facts,  qualities,  and 
distinctions  are,  in  the  last  analysis,  imper- 
manent and  vain;  subtle  strands  in  a  vast 
cloud-veil  of  illusion,  that  infolds,  like  a 
misty,  deceiving  atmosphere,  the  one  un- 
searchable reality  of  the  Impersonal  Abso- 
lute. In  making  this  statement  on  unreal- 
ity I  do  not  forget  how  enormously  the  Far 
East,  in  particular  China  and  Japan,  has 
been  affected  by  that  most  extraordinary 
master  and  teacher  of  ethics,  Confucius, 
with  his  accent  on  the  five  primary  rela- 
tions of  social  and  domestic  life.  They 
were  formulated  into  a  doctrine  which  could 
be  mastered  very  easily  by  the  people:  1. 
Between  father  and  son  let  there  be  love. 
2.  Between  king  and  subject  let  there  be 
duty.  3.  Between  husband  and  wife  let 
there  be  proper  distinctions  (of  functions). 
4.  Between  the  old  and  the  young  let  there 
be  orderliness.  5.  Between  friend  and 
friend  let  there  be  faithfulness.  It  is  im- 
possible to  overstate  the  greatness  of  Con- 
fucianism. It  came  into  Asiatic  life  as  a 
countervailing  influence,  to  offset  the  in- 
difference to  relationships  developed  by  the 
absolute  idealism  of  higher  Hindu  thought 


164      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

and  Buddhist  pessimism.  A  profound  stu- 
dent of  the  subject,  Mr.  Tokiwo  Yokoi,  of 
Japan,  whom  I  had  the  pleasure  to  meet 
in  Gujerat,  India,  on  the  Christmas  eve 
of  1902,  gave  expression  in  the  "Interna- 
tional Journal  of  Ethics"  (January,  1906) 
to  some  striking  remarks  upon  Confucian- 
ism in  Japan,  as  a  corrective  of  the  too  deep 
absorption  in  the  Unseen  which  is  charac- 
teristic of  Asian  thought.  He  says:  "The 
life-ideal  [of  Japan]  enriched  itself  most 
largely  by  accepting  the  ethical  system  of 
Confucius.  The  great  merit  of  Confu- 
cianism was  in  the  positive  and  ethical  na- 
ture of  its  teachings.  It  dwelt  on  the  im- 
portance of  the  daily  routine  of  life,  and 
invested  with  almost  religious  significance 
the  minor,  commonplace  events  of  exist- 
ence. It  was  indeed  a  grand  and  inspiring 
ideal,  and  it  has  helped  to  produce  in  Japan 
those  enlightened  princes  and  scholarly 
statesmen  to  whom  the  country  owes  many 
a  salvation  in  times  of  crisis,  and  to  whom 
we  owe  that  ideal  of  upright  public  service 
which  to-day  is  proving  so  influential." 
The  unprejudiced  student  of  the  modern 
East  must  admire  the  justice  of  these  obser- 


CONTRASTS  — EAST  AND  WEST        165 

vations  if  happily  admitted  to  the  personal 
fellowship  of  certain  Orientals  of  distinc- 
tion. I  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  to  this 
more  fully  when  discussing,  in  the  next 
Lecture,  "  Religious  Insight  and  Experi- 
ence outside  of  Christianity."  There  is 
reason  to  feel  that  the  influence  of  Confu- 
cius upon  ethical  ideals  of  the  Far  East 
will  be  found  ultimately  to  have  prepared 
the  way  for  a  singularly  noble  type  of  Chris- 
tianity. Nevertheless,  there  is  a  fact  larger 
than  Confucianism  to  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration in  ascertaining  the  philosophical 
attitude  of  Eastern  races  toward  life  in 
this  present  world.  That  larger  fact  is  Hin- 
duism and  its  gigantic  cognate,  Buddhism. 
It  is  no  part  of  my  present  purpose  to  define 
Hinduism.  It  were  a  vain  endeavor.  No 
more  can  this  vast,  flexible  synthesis  of  reli- 
gious thinking  be  defined,  than  the  atmos- 
phere be  walled  about  or  the  tide  encom- 
passed with  bounds.  Great  masters  of  the 
West  have  dealt  with  the  problems  of  thought 
incorporated  within  the  all-absorbing  name 
Hinduism.  Max  Miiller,  Oldenberg,  Deus- 
sen,  Rhys  Davids,  Coplestone,  and  many 
others  have  traced  its  channels  from  the 


166      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

ancient  springs  of  Central  Asia,  down 
through  the  defiles  of  the  Hindu  Kush  into 
the  plains  of  Hindustan.  They  have  fol- 
lowed its  eastward  way,  in  the  Buddhism 
of  Ceylon,  Siam,  China,  Japan.  They  have 
prepared  invaluable  memorials  of  scholar- 
ship for  those  who  shall  follow  them.  But 
the  spirit  of  Hinduism,  the  mental  attitude, 
the  world- view  from  which  it  emanates,  the 
opposites  which  it  incorporates,  the  contra- 
dictions which  it  ignores,  the  imperial  calm- 
ness with  which  it  appropriates  all  things, 
even  Christianity,  as  its  own  —  who  can 
define  these!  To  liberal  Hindus  the  illim- 
itable in  Hinduism  is  its  glory.  Neither 
time  nor  place,  creed  nor  form,  can  restrain 
its  incalculable  synthesis.  One  of  its  own 
representatives,  Mr.  Pramatha  Nath  Bose, 
F.  G.  S.,  M.  R.  A.  S.,  in  his  book  on  "Hindu 
Civilization  during  British  Rule,"  1  says : 
"  In  one  sense  it  is  a  very  ancient  religion, 
in  another  sense  it  is  not.  Though  pro- 
fessedly based  upon  the  Vedas,  it  is  no 
more  like  the  Vedic  religion  than  man  is 
like  the  protoplasmic  germ  out  of  which 
he  is  supposed  to  have  been  evolved.    It 

1  Cf.  p.  45. 


CONTRASTS  — EAST  AND  WEST        167 

has  grown  through  three  thousand  years 
to  be  what  it  is  at  present.  It  is  not  the 
creed  of  the  Rig- Veda,  nor  of  the  Brah- 
manas,  nor  of  the  Upanishads,  nor  of  the 
Puranas;  it  is  neither  Saivism,  nor  Vaish- 
navism  nor  Saktism:  yet  it  is  all  these.  It 
can  hardly  be  called  a  homogeneous  religion 
in  the  sense  that  Judaism  and  Zoroastri- 
anism  are  among  the  older,  or  Christianity 
and  Mohammedanism  are  among  the  more 
recent,  religions." 

It  is  well  for  us  Aryans  of  the  West, 
whose  training  in  the  method  of  religious 
thinking  has  for  the  most  part  been  far 
different  from  that  of  our  brother  Aryans  of 
the  East,  to  understand  how  life  has  looked 
to  those  elemental  prophets  of  negation,  the 
makers  of  philosophies  and  theologies  of 
Hinduism  that  have  influenced  all  the  East, 
including  Buddhism  and  Mohammedan- 
ism, and  that  have  reacted  upon  Christian 
thinking  in  the  most  cultivated  circles  of 
the  West.  One  recalls  the  daring  words  of 
a  brilliant  Indian  monk,  the  late  Swami 
Vivekananda:  "As  the  creed  of  the  down- 
trodden Jew  has  held  half  the  earth  during 
eighteen  centuries,  so  it  seems  not  unlikely 


168      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

that  that  of  the  despised  Hindu  may  yet 
dominate  the  world."  It  is  certain  that 
reactions  of  the  Higher  Hinduism  upon  the 
higher  religious  thinking  of  the  West  may 
be  looked  for,  to  an  extent  not  dreamed  of 
by  an  earlier  age  of  Western  separatism, 
before  the  Christianization  of  the  world  can 
be  accomplished. 

To  a  single  aspect  of  philosophical  Hin- 
duism I  must  confine  my  remarks;  to  that 
aspect  that  has  most  universally  affected 
Oriental  life  —  the  relative  unreality  of 
things  that  are  seen.  While  the  goal  of  West- 
ern ambition  has  been  to  grasp,  control,  and 
use  the  world,  the  goal  of  Hindu  thinking 
ever  has  been  to  reach  and  to  be  absorbed 
within  the  abysmal  depths  of  Pure  Being: 
the  One,  the  Only,  Reality,  subsisting  be- 
hind all  possible  distinctions,  physical,  per- 
sonal, moral.  Beneath  the  variable  features 
of  the  several  systems  of  Hindu  philosophy 
lies  a  formidable  unity  which,  so  to  say,  de- 
termines the  subliminal  consciousness  of  the 
Orient.  It  is  insistence  upon  the  ultimate 
fact  of  Pure  Being,  as  that  alone  which  pos- 
sesses finality.  Personal  distinctions  cannot 
represent  the  final  fact  in  Infinite  Being. 


CONTRASTS  — EAST  AND  WEST        169 

Personal  distinctions  are  seemings,  not  reali- 
ties. Were  they  real  they  would  in  effect  be 
limitations  upon  the  Illimitable,  qualities  of 
the  Unqualified,  attributes  and  modes  of 
that  which  is  beyond  attributes  and  modes 
—  namely,  the  Infinite  Impersonal ;  the 
Undifferentiated  Essence  of  the  Ultimate. 
I  can  speak  of  this  only  in  the  most 
general  terms,  contenting  myself  with  this 
single  reference  to  a  subject  so  great  that  it 
would  require  a  course  of  lectures  to  give 
it  proper  definition.  My  purpose  in  this 
reference  is  to  show  by  suggestion  how  this 
characteristic  Asiatic  world-view,  in  itself 
and  in  its  implications,  produces  a  state  of 
consciousness  and  a  set  of  interests  opposite 
to  those  most  real  and  most  vital  to  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  with  his  instinct  for  definite- 
ness,  his  love  of  affirmation,  his  grasp  on 
things.  To  him  the  world  is  real:  nature, 
time,  self,  life,  duty,  character,  God,  are  all 
personally  real.  To  the  Oriental,  wrapped 
in  the  atmosphere  of  negation  and  imper- 
sonality, all  this  outward,  visible  whirl  of 
incidents,  people,  and  things  is  shadow-play 
upon  the  surface  of  inscrutable  depths ;  the 
so-called  ultimates  of  right  and  wrong  are 


170      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

changing  lights  gleaming  across  the  dark 
ocean  of  the  Unknown. 

The  primary  interest  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
is  attainment  outside  of  himself:  to  know 
by  research  in  the  storehouses  of  knowledge, 
by  observation  of  the  facts  of  nature  and 
history ;  to  observe  and  compare  phenomena, 
and  thus  to  find  himself,  the  world,  and  God. 

The  primary  interest  of  the  Oriental  is 
within.  He  desires  escape  from  the  exter- 
nal, from  the  shadow-play  of  substances 
and  efforts  and  inventions  and  discoveries. 
He  aspires  to  cut  the  chain  of  the  phenome- 
nal, whereby  he  is  held  upon  the  surface  of 
things,  and  to  sink  into  the  inner  abyss  of 
esoteric  knowledge,  mystically  acquired  and 
mystically  liberated,  through  immediate 
union  with  the  Absolute.  One  may  not  find 
in  Western  literature  a  statement  of  the 
Eastern  ideal  more  magnificent  and  more 
intelligent  to  Western  minds  than  that 
which  Robert  Browning,  the  most  princely 
European  mystic  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
sets  forth  in  "Paracelsus:"  — 

"Truth  is  within  ourselves;  it  takes  no  rise 
From  outward  things,  whate'er  you  may  believe. 
There  is  an  inmost  centre  in  us  all, 


CONTRASTS  — EAST  AND  WEST        171 

Wall  upon  wall,  the  gross  flesh  hems  it  in, 

This  perfect,  clear  perception  —  which  is  Truth. 

Where  truth  abides  in  fulness;  and  around, 

A  baffling  and  perverting  carnal  mesh 

Binds  it  and  makes  all  error;  and  to  know 

Rather  consists  in  opening  out  a  way 

Whence  the  imprisoned  splendor  may  escape 

Than  in  effecting  entry  for  a  light 

Supposed  to  be  without." 

It  is  when  we  reflect  upon  considerations 
like  these,  and  not  until  we  do  so  reflect, 
that  we  are  able  to  interpret  worthily  cer- 
tain temperamental  tendencies  of  the  East, 
upon  which  ordinarily  the  provincial  Anglo- 
Saxon,  full  of  affairs,  looks  down  with 
contempt;  railing  at  the  inert,  purposeless 
Oriental. 

Indifference  to  the  hidden  resources  of 
nature  is  one  of  these  tendencies.  It  ap- 
pears in  the  lack  of  scientific  initiative. 
The  East  has  not  been  keen  to  pursue  to 
their  hidden  springs  the  productive  and 
motive  powers  of  the  physical  universe;  it 
has  not  arraigned  nature  before  the  in- 
quisition of  science,  to  extort  from  her  a 
confession  of  her  secret  wealth.  There  are 
indeed  evidences  that  at  a  very  early  period 
individual  Orientals  were  making  explora- 


172      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

tions  in  the  domains  of  astronomy,  physics, 
medicine,  surgery,  and  other  branches  of 
knowledge,  but  the  impressive  conservatism 
of  the  Eastern  world  shows  that  these  in- 
terests were  sporadic,  not  general;  that  the 
mind  was  set  on  the  exploration  of  other, 
and  invisible,  realms.  The  exciting  annals 
of  utilitarian  invention  throughout  the  West, 
the  vast  activities  of  applied  science,  com- 
peting to  save  labor  and  to  annihilate  space 
and  time,  find  no  counterpart  in  the  general 
development  of  Eastern  nations.  Where 
Hinduism  and  Buddhism  prevail,  the  popu- 
lar life  is  marked  by  touching  simplicity. 
The  wants  and  the  pleasures  alike  are 
simple.  It  suffices  to  move  quietly  onward 
in  old  paths,  hallowed  by  the  practice  of  a 
thousand  generations.  The  patient  use  of 
old  methods  and  limited  materials  sheds 
over  Eastern  life  a  certain  pathos  which  is 
majestic,  because  it  suggests,  not  incapacity 
for  progress,  but  preoccupation  of  the  mind 
with  things  unseen.  In  the  great  Asiatic 
communities  shaped  by  Confucianism,  there 
is  industry,  but  of  a  serene  and  pastoral 
type.  The  earth  is  tilled,  not,  as  with  us, 
for  speculative   competition    in  the  grain 


CONTRASTS  — EAST  AND  WEST        173 

markets  of  the  world,  but  according  to 
"the  slowly  defining  necessities  of  an 
agricultural  community,  developing  itself 
through  uncounted  ages  of  tranquillity." 
The  shepherd  and  the  peasant  of  the  mod- 
ern East  are  figures  from  an  olden  time. 
A  pristine  dignity  invests  them;  even  as,  in 
the  mythology  of  China,  the  first  Emperor 
was  Fukki,  the  Teacher  of  Grazing,  suc- 
ceeded by  Shinno,  the  Divine  Farmer. 

But  this  indifference  to  the  hidden  re- 
sources of  nature  is  not  boorish.  This 
ineptitude  for  clever  inventions  to  save  time 
and  to  cheapen  production  is  not  because 
the  hand  is  clumsy  or  the  eye  dull.  On  the 
contrary,  the  genius  for  beauty  rises  in  the 
East  to  transcendent  heights,  consecrated 
to  the  service  of  religion  and  royalty.  It 
would  seem  that  the  utilitarian  indifference 
of  the  Oriental  mind  leaves  unspent  possi- 
bilities of  power  at  the  service  of  the  aesthetic 
instinct.  As  touch  becomes  marvelous  in 
the  hand  of  the  blind,  being  set  apart,  as  it 
were,  for  special  ministry,  so  the  genius  for 
beauty,  reserved  in  a  measure  from  sordid 
engagement  with  commonplace  ends,  at- 
tains a  distinction  unparalleled  in  Western 


174      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

life.  Beauty  of  design  and  workmanship  in 
the  West  tends  to  become  a  commercial 
asset.  In  the  East  it  still  remains  a  religious 
aspiration.  In  consequence  he  who  returns 
from  the  mystic,  reverent  beauty  of  the 
Eastern  mode,  to  the  useful  beauty  of  the 
West,  perceives  that  in  some  manner  a 
splendid  vision  has  faded  out  into  the  light 
of  common  day.  He  who  has  seen  the 
designers  of  enamels  at  their  work  in  Jaipur 
perceives  how  a  Rajput  handicraftsman 
raises  beauty  to  the  plane  of  the  spiritual. 
Indifference  to  time  is  another  tempera- 
mental tendency  of  the  East.  It  exasper- 
ates the  Anglo-Saxon,  with  whom  time  is 
money,  and  punctuality  the  courtesy  of 
kings.  Especially  he  despises  it  because,  in 
the  ethics  of  the  West,  a  high  estimate  of  the 
value  of  time  ordinarily  accompanies,  if  it 
does  not  presuppose,  moral  thoroughness, 
an  active  conscience,  promptitude  and  honor 
in  the  discharge  of  obligation.  In  these 
qualities  he  finds  the  East  deficient  and, 
judging  under  the  Western  code  only,  with- 
out considering  those  factors  in  the  Oriental 
consciousness  whence  comes  this  indiffer- 
ence, his  eye  darkens  with  scorn.    He  for- 


CONTRASTS  —  EAST  AND  WEST        175 

gets  that  time,  and  the  crowded  programme 
of  the  phenomenal  world,  stand,  for  the 
Eastern  mind,  within  the  shadowy  circle  of 
unreality ;  that  personal  distinctions  and  the 
momentary  importance  of  obligation  are 
seen,  by  it,  in  a  relation  produced  by  the  con- 
cepts may  a  and  reincarnation,  for  which  the 
West  has  no  equivalent.  I  make  no  attempt 
to  extenuate  Oriental  lapses  from  virtue, 
nor  to  hint  at  two  codes  of  ethics;  but  I 
draw  attention  to  the  fact  that  Eastern  indif- 
ference to  time  and  obligation  is  not  identical 
with  Western  laziness  and  shiftiness;  its 
producing  causes  are  not  ignoble,  and  its 
rectification  must  involve,  not  the  Western- 
izing of  the  East,  but  a  new  and  vast  synthe- 
sis of  idealistic  philosophy  with  the  Christ's 
conception  of  manhood  and  of  the  world. 
If  it  is  true  that  indifference  to  time  and 
the  strenuous  programme  of  obligation 
breeds  in  the  Eastern  an  ethical  laissez-faire 
that  offends  the  Puritan  conscience,  it  is 
also  true  that  a  singular  depth  of  tenderness 
is  engendered  by  the  pessimistic  philosophy. 
The  soul  of  the  East  is  rich  in  the  gentler 
feelings.  Being  less  immersed  in  egoistic 
rivalry,  it  remains  at  leisure  to  feel,  to  love, 


176      CHKIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

to  share  with  others  the  perennial  mystery 
of  life's  sorrow.  To  this  it  joins  a  superb 
genius  for  contemplation,  and  an  insatiate 
interest  in  the  spiritual  realms;  following 
every  clue  that  leads  into  the  soul's  laby- 
rinth, and  welcoming  with  inspiring,  even 
importunate,  interest  every  fellow-seeker 
after  God  advancing  in  the  spirit  of  the 
larger  brotherhood. 

I  cannot  carry  my  subject  further  in  the 
present  Lecture.  In  the  Lecture  following 
this  I  shall  proceed  toward  the  distinctly 
religious  aspects  of  Orientalism,  speaking 
of  "Religious  Insight  and  Experience  Out- 
side of  Christianity. ' '  My  hope  is  that  I  have 
set  forth  the  greatness  of  East  and  West  in 
their  respective  spheres  of  consciousness; 
and  that  the  exhibition  of  the  tempera- 
mental contrasts  herein  involved  suggests  a 
Divine  purpose  to  effect  a  better  mutual 
understanding,  a  closer  spiritual  correspond- 
ence of  these  mighty  spheres  of  human  ex- 
perience and  aspiration.  There  are  quali- 
ties in  us  to  which  the  modern  East  already 
begins  to  correspond;  not  only,  we  may 
believe,  for  the  advancement  of  industrial 
arts,  and  arts  of  war.    There  is  already  in 


CONTRASTS  — EAST  AND  WEST        177 

progress  an  exalted  commerce  of  the  mind ; 
an  assimilation  of  educational  ideals  which 
may  prepare  the  way  for  the  assimilation  of 
ethical  ideals.  And  surely  there  are  quali- 
ties in  the  finer  souls  of  the  East  to  which 
the  Western  world  may  with  advantage  give 
more  consideration  and  readier  hospitality. 
"The  world  is  too  much  with  us."  We 
need  to  multiply  our  vision-seers,  our  inter- 
preters of  the  soul.  Great  prophets  of  the 
ideal  have  arisen  among  us,  unto  whom 
many  have  listened  and  by  whom  many 
have  been  interpreted  to  themselves :  Cole- 
ridge and  Wordsworth,  Carlyle  and  Tenny- 
son, Ruskin  and  Browning.  In  these  lived 
the  spirit  of  the  East.  These  were  apostles 
of  the  unseen,  evangelists  of  a  larger  spir- 
itual selfhood,  who  lifted  up  their  voices 
in  protest  against  our  Western  thraldom  to 
the  visible.  Their  message  had  in  it  the 
genius  of  the  higher  Orientalism.  They 
declared  (often,  alas!  to  dull  ears)  the  un- 
reality, the  shadow-dance,  of  things  visible ; 
the  eternal  glory  and  stability  of  that  which 
seeks  its  ultimate  affinities  in  God.  Is  there 
not,  in  all  of  us,  beneath  our  Western  bond- 
age to  the  conventional  fashions  of  a  passing 


178      CHRIST  AND  THE   HUMAN  RACE 

age,  a  finer  sense  of  the  Infinite  Unseen,  and 
of  its  glory  and  worth,  that,  in  our  best  mo- 
ments, rises  in  us,  at  the  call  of  the  East,  "to 
gaze  beyond  the  things  we  see  ?  "  Yes !  it  is 
in  each  one  of  us,  albeit  buried  deeply  in 
some.  We  are  Occidentals  in  habitude  and 
custom  of  our  outer  life,  but  in  the  holy  of 
holies  within  there  visits  us,  in  rare  hours,  an 
Eastern  glory  that  breaks  through  language 
and  escapes  into  the  unfettered  thought  of 
Infinity.  What  man  among  us  knows  not  at 
times  his  kinship  with  the  Oriental  mystic ! 
What  man  among  us  answers  not,  in  his 
soul's  clearest,  finest  hours,  to  those  words 
that  were  written,  not  by  Hindu  prophet 
dreaming  on  the  Ganges'  bank,  but  here  in 
Cambridge,  by  a  most  manful  citizen  of  the 
West,  James  Russell  Lowell :  — - 

"Sometimes  at  waking,  in  the  street  sometimes, 
Or  on  the  hillside,  always  unforewarned, 
A  grace  of  being,  finer  than  himself, 
That  beckons  and  is  gone  —  a  larger  life 
Upon  his  own  impinging,  with  swift  glimpse 
Of  spacious  circles  luminous  with  mind, 
To  which  the  ethereal  substance  of  his  own 
Seems  but  gross  cloud  to  make  that  visible, 
Touched  to  a  sudden  glory  round  the  edge." 


LECTURE   V 

RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  OUTSIDE 
OF  CHRISTIANITY 

In  the  third  and  fourth  Lectures  it  has  been 
my  privilege  to  discuss  two  subjects  of  great 
importance  to  those  who  are  interested  in 
broader  aspects  of  the  human  problem; 
namely,  "  The  Essential  Unity  of  the  Hu- 
man Race  and  Temperamental  Contrasts 
between  East  and  West."  I  outlined  certain 
tentative  opinions  bearing  upon  these  as- 
pects, into  some  measure  of  sympathy  with 
which  I  trust  that  I  was  able  to  bring  my 
auditors.  A  brief  review  of  these  opinions 
should  be  made  at  this  point.  I  began  by 
describing  the  nature  of  an  effective  convic- 
tion of  the  unity  of  the  human  race.  It  is  a 
conviction  effective  for  ethical  ends  of  ser- 
vice, because  founded  on  more  than  an  emo- 
tional or  sentimental  hope,  even  on  reasoned 
and  experimental  belief.  I  recognized  the 
fact  that  such  a  belief  has  its  opponents  and 
that  their  opposition  can  be  accounted  for. 


180      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

In  many  it  is  the  negative  effect  of  lack  of 
knowledge.  The  mind  having  been  engaged 
with  local  interests  has  not  had  its  attention 
directed  toward  the  world.  In  the  absence 
of  information  to  the  contrary,  it  assumes, 
vaguely,  that  fundamental  differences  be- 
tween races  exclude  the  possibility  of  unity. 
Other  opponents  of  this  belief  are  controlled 
in  their  opinion  by  obvious  and  striking 
contrasts  with  all  that  is  familiar  and  accept- 
able to  the  Occident,  which  press  upon  the 
view  of  the  Western  observer  of  Eastern  life, 
manners,  and  thought.  Still  others  succumb 
to  that  subtle  alienation  of  sympathy  that  is 
called  race  prejudice.  The  instinctive  racial 
egotism  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  powerfully  af- 
fects his  world-judgments.  While  allowing 
for  these  divergent  opinions  and  respecting 
the  sincerity  of  those  who  profess  them,  I 
ventured  to  express  belief  founded  to  some 
extent  upon  experience,  that  if  one  will  go 
into  remote  regions  of  the  Oriental  world 
with  a  mind  disburdened  of  race  prejudice 
and  eager  for  evidence  on  which  to  sustain 
a  theory  of  the  essential  unity  of  mankind, 
he  is  bound  to  find  that  evidence  in  abun- 
dance, lying  ready  to  his  hand. 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  181 

It  is  of  various  kinds.  A  comparative 
study  of  arts,  both  of  design  and  of  pro- 
duction, yields  singularly  rich  evidence  that 
the  inventive  capacity  of  the  brain  and  the 
productive  power  of  the  hand  are  broad 
human  endowments;  in  the  exercise  of 
which,  interchanges  between  East  and  West 
at  length  may  become  practically  unlimited. 
One  who  has  heard  the  Japanese  choir 
singing  Greek  liturgies  in  the  Russian  cathe- 
dral at  Tokyo  no  longer  doubts  the  catho- 
licity of  art.  Another  line  of  evidence  leads 
into  the  region  of  criticism.  The  East 
shows  extraordinary  keenness  in  discerning 
and  interpreting  motives  governing  West- 
ern life.  It  is  no  longer  possible  to  mislead 
a  credulous  East;  nor  can  deficiencies  or 
excellences  of  the  Occidental  morale  escape 
inquisition  and  judgment  at  the  bar  of  the 
Oriental  consciousness.  Still  another  line 
of  evidence  for  the  essential  unity  of  the 
race  traverses  psychological  experience. 
The  crude  attempt  of  Anglo-Saxon  preju- 
dice to  dismiss  contemptuously  the  thought 
and  feeling  of  the  East  falls  to  the  ground. 
All  that  the  West  apprehends  in  the  region 
of  sentiment  seems  to  attain  richer  content 


182      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

and  to  unfold  more  spiritual  beauty  when 
conceived  in  the  soul  of  the  Asiatic.  The 
fundamental  emotions  acquire  wonderful 
naturalness,  simplicity,  and  depth.  If  we 
seek  the  most  magnificent  interpretations 
of  honor,  courage,  compassion,  forgiveness, 
faithfulness,  love,  we  shall  find  them  issu- 
ing from  Eastern  sources.  Nor  does  there 
appear  to  be  any  literary  form  in  which  the 
West  has  uttered  its  most  cherished  senti- 
ment that  may  not  be  assimilated  and  re- 
incarnated by  the  sensitive  East.  A  striking 
example  of  Eastern  poetical  feeling  express- 
ing itself  in  Western  modes  appears  in  the 
writings  of  a  young  Indian  woman,  pub- 
lished recently  in  London  under  the  title: 
"The Golden  Threshold." '  Sarojini Chatto- 
padhyay  Naidu  was  the  daughter  of  a  dis- 
tinguished Indian  scholar,  Dr.  Aghorenath 
Chattopadhyay,  founder  of  the  Nizam  Col- 
lege at  Hyderabad.  Her  father  had  illus- 
trated the  intellectual  homogeneity  of  the 
human  race  by  taking  the  degree  of  Doctor 
of  Science  at  the  University  of  Edinburgh. 
Her  mother,  bound  by  social  limitations, 
spoke  only  Hindustani.    That  her  ancestry 

1  William  Heinemann,  London,  1900. 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  183 

was  purely  Oriental  appears  from  one  of  her 
own  letters:  "My  ancestors  for  thousands 
of  years  have  been  lovers  of  the  forest  and 
mountain  caves,  great  dreamers,  great  schol- 
ars, great  ascetics."  Yet  the  poetic  impulse 
of  this  child  of  the  East  utters  itself  in  liter- 
ary forms  that  suggest  Swinburne.  I  quote 
at  random  one  of  her  poems  called  "  Coro- 
mandel  Fishers."  One  who  has  watched 
these  fishers  in  early  mornings  on  the  Coro- 
mandel  coast,  flinging  their  catamarans 
into  the  surf,  and  riding  out  like  water-fowl 
through  the  foam  of  the  breakers,  can  un- 
derstand the  charm  of  these  verses,  and  their 
appeal  to  the  Occidental  consciousness :  — 

"Rise,  brothers,  rise,  the  wakening  skies  pray  to  the 

morning  light, 
The  wind  lies  asleep  in  the  arms  of  the  dawn  like  a  child 

that  has  cried  all  night. 
Come,  let  us  gather  our  nets  from  the  shore,  and  set  our 

catamarans  free, 
To  capture  the  leaping  wealth  of  the  tide,  for  we  are  the 

sons  of  the  sea. 

"  No  longer  delay,  let  us  hasten  away  in  the  track  of  the 

sea-gull's  call, 
The  sea  is  our  mother,  the  cloud  is  our  brother,  the 

waves  are  our  comrades  all. 


184      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

What  though  we  toss  at  the  fall  of  the  sun  where  the 

hand  of  the  sea-god  drives  ? 
He  who  holds  the  storm  by  the  hair,  will  hide  in  his 

breast  our  lives. 

"  Sweet  is  the  shade  of  the  cocoanut  glade,  and  the  scent 

of  the  mango  grove. 
And  sweet  are  the  sands  at  the  fall  o'  the  moon  with 

the  sound  of  the  voices  we  love. 
But  sweeter,  O  brothers,  the  kiss  of  the  spray  and  the 

dance  of  the^wild  foams'  glee; 
Row,  brothers,  row  to  the  blue  of  the  verge,  where  the 

low  sky  mates  with  the  sea." 

But,  while  contending  on  these  grounds 
for  the  essential  unity  of  the  human  race, 
I  pointed  out,  in  my  last  Lecture,  the  pro- 
found temperamental  contrasts  that  obtain 
between  East  and  West.  It  was  shown  that 
the  fundamental  fact  in  Western  thinking 
is  a  sense  of  the  reality  of  the  visible  uni- 
verse. This  fact  chiefly  determines  the 
ways  and  manners,  the  ideals  and  attain- 
ments, of  the  West.  The  fruit  of  this  sense 
of  reality  is  a  virile,  resolute  philosophy  of 
energy,  a  zeal  to  do,  a  zest  to  be.  The  in- 
certitude of  Hamlet,  "to  be  or  not  to  be," 
enters  not  largely  or  normally  into  West- 
ern life.    Longfellow  embodies  the  working 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  185 

creed  of  Anglo-Saxonism  in  his  line:  "Life 
is  real,  life  is  earnest."  Action,  the  fruits  of 
labor,  duty,  character,  conscience,  God,  are 
substantial  verities.  It  is  customary  with 
average  minds  to  take  these  verities  for 
granted.  Life  on  any  other  basis  is  unthink- 
able to  most  Englishmen  and  Americans. 
The  intense  realism  of  existence  underlies, 
for  the  average,  every  thought,  ambition, 
hope,  or  fear.  At  each  extreme  of  the  social 
order,  this  passion  to  live  and  to  have,  in  a 
real  world,  works  out  into  disastrous  ab- 
errations. In  the  unsuccessful  and  illiterate 
poor,  cast  out  like  refuse  from  the  machine 
of  utilitarianism,  failure  to  grasp  the  ma- 
terial prizes  of  existence  produces  often  a 
stolid  type  of  hopelessness,  unbrightened 
by  imagination  or  aspiration,  such  as  sur- 
vives immortally  in  the  least  fortunate 
classes  of  the  East.  In  the  successful,  who 
yet  have  not  been  spiritualized  by  the  power 
of  religion  nor  brought  to  that  sense  of  self- 
restraint  and  altruistic  responsibility  which 
are  among  the  finest  fruits  of  higher  cul- 
ture, the  utilitarian  passion  for  things  works 
out  into  barbaric  selfishness  and  physical 
contentment  with  luxury.    It  is   doubtful 


186      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

whether  the  world  contains  anywhere  a 
class  more  blindly  given  over  to  the  pursuit 
of  the  visible,  or  more  careless  of  the  rights 
of  others  in  that  pursuit.  But  these  inev- 
itable deficiencies  and  overgrowths  of  a 
civilization  founded  upon  appreciation  of 
a  visible  universe  do  not  detract  from  the 
value  of  the  Western  type  of  development, 
when  the  sense  of  reality  is  illuminated  by 
the  influences  of  Christian  culture.  Into 
every  form  of  beneficial  and  productive  ef- 
fort and  research  this  sense  of  the  actuality 
and  usableness  of  the  world  has  led  the 
Western  mind.  It  has  led  to  discovery  in 
every  department  of  nature,  to  philosophi- 
cal treatment  of  all  subjects,  to  extraor- 
dinary fertility  in  application  of  forces  to 
ends  of  betterment.  It  has  produced  strong 
initiative,  self-confidence,  tendency  to  em- 
body ideas  in  results.  It  has  developed 
clear  vision  in  the  ethical  realm ;  senses  ex- 
ercised by  reason  of  use  to  discern  between 
good  and  evil;  vigor  of  the  individual  con- 
science; keenness  of  the  sense  of  sin  as  an 
affront  to  the  holiness  of  God.  From  it  has 
come  statesman-like  power  in  organizing 
social  forces  on  the  side  of  righteousness; 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  187 

the  creation  and  upbuilding  of  useful  insti- 
tutions. Professor  J.  Estlin  Carpenter,  in 
one  of  a  series  of  lectures  on  "The  Place 
of  Christianity  among  the  Religions  of  the 
World,' '  strongly  characterizes  the  value  of 
the  Occidental  note  of  reality  in  religious 
and  social  thinking:  "A  new  outlook  is 
gained  over  fresh  fields  of  thought  [by  the 
spirit  of  modern  Christian  culture  in  the 
West].  It  rises  in  the  nineteenth  century 
with  unexpected  might,  flies  over  continents, 
and  wins  homage  in  every  zone  from  pole 
to  pole.  The  noblest  European  literatures 
are  permeated  with  it;  philosophies  de- 
light to  bring  themselves  into  accord  with 
its  teachings ;  it  endeavors  to  assimilate  the 
last  great  product  of  the  human  spirit  — 
modern  science ;  and  it  is  preparing  itself  to 
conquer  new  fields ;  it  claims  that  its  ethical 
ideals  shall  sway  and  regulate  the  relations 
of  men  as  they  have  never  done  before.  The 
alliance  of  Christianity  with  so  many  phases 
of  social  affairs,  its  union  with  so  many 
forms  of  intellectual  and  moral  energy,  its 
power  to  create  or  vivify  huge  organiza- 
tions of  worship,  discipline,  philanthropy; 
its  influence  over  the  most  progressive  na- 


188      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

tions  who  have  given  their  best  endeavors 
to  sustain  it  at  home  and  diffuse  it  abroad 
— combine  to  raise  it,  considered  solely  as 
an  historical  phenomenon,  to  the  highest 
eminence  among  the  world's  religions." 

In  contrast  with  this  vast  activity  of  in- 
tellectual and  religious  effort  in  the  West, 
intent  on  using  to  the  utmost  a  visible 
world  and  lifting  man's  contemporary  life 
to  the  highest  level  of  efficiency,  the  root  and 
basis  of  the  Oriental  consciousness  (speak- 
ing broadly)  is  an  assumption  of  the  un- 
reality of  things  that  are  seen;  a  primary 
interest  in  the  metaphysical  Unseen,  the 
ultimate  essence  of  Being;  and,  finally,  in 
the  consummation  of  personal  existence 
through  some  manner  of  union  with,  or 
absorption  in,  the  metaphysical  Unseen, 
whether  by  fusion,  as  the  wave  sinks  in  the 
sea,  or  by  extinction,  as  the  flame  severed 
from  the  wick  vanishes  in  illimitable  space. 
Out  of  this  primordial  attitude  of  the  Orien- 
tal consciousness  have  issued  an  inconceiv- 
able number  of  modifications,  ascending 
to  every  height  of  idealism  or  lapsing  to 
every  depth  of  pessimism,  and  to  every 
negation  of  serviceable  power. 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  189 

The  sublimity  of  the  East  and  the  igno- 
miny of  the  East;  the  sustained  strength  of 
spiritual  vision  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
relative  languor  and  ineptitude  of  moral 
capacity  on  the  other  hand,  are  opposite 
results  of  one  deep-seated  temperamental 
tendency.  It  is  the  passion  of  the  East  to 
pursue,  by  the  shrouded  path  of  mysticism, 
distinctions  that  reach  back  into  the  depths 
of  being,  and  to  cultivate  the  soul  in  its 
relation  to  those  depths  of  being,  rather 
than  to  train  the  soul  for  efficiency  in  affairs 
of  the  visible  world,  or  to  exercise  the  soul 
in  the  discipline  of  practical  virtues. 

It  has  appeared  necessary  to  make  this 
somewhat  extended  review  of  ground  al- 
ready traversed  in  order  to  present  with 
clearness  the  material  of  the  present  Lec- 
ture. I  ask  you  now  to  look  out  into  this 
great  field  of  Oriental  God-consciousness, 
and,  in  the  liberal  and  sympathetic  atti- 
tude of  Jesus  Christ,  to  consider  religious 
insight  and  experience  lying  outside  of  those 
intellectual,  dogmatic,  and  ecclesiastical 
boundaries  to  which  we  apply  the  term 
Christianity. 

It  is  not  so  very  long  since  even  a  uni- 


190      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

versity  audience  in  the  Western  hemi- 
sphere would  look  with  disdain  upon  this 
proposal.  To-day,  none  can  be  more  ac- 
ceptable to  the  mind  of  true  culture  and 
true  humanism.  We  smile  now  at  the 
whimsical  absurdity  of  Dr.  Samuel  John- 
son's remark:  "There  are  two  objects  of 
curiosity,  the  Christian  world  and  the  Mo- 
hammedan world;  all  the  rest  may  be 
considered  as  barbarous."  Yet  it  is  not  so 
long  ago  that  many  would  have  placed  the 
Mohammedan  world  also  in  the  category  of 
the  barbarous;  unworthy  of  consideration 
in  a  study  of  real  religious  values.  This 
mental  attitude  toward  non-Christian  faiths 
grew  from  the  theory  of  which  Mr.  Glad- 
stone was  an  able  defender,  that  the  origin 
of  religion  was  a  primitive  revelation  to 
Israel  which  developed  into  the  larger  reve- 
lation of  Christianity,  and  that  beyond  this 
there  is  no  religion  save  that  which  is  falsely 
so-called.  Hence  the  familiar  and  mislead- 
ing division  of  religions  into  "true"  and 
"  false."  This  classification  involves  not  an 
indifferent  question  of  terms  but  a  primary 
question  of  fact;  namely,  the  nature  of 
religion.    It  is  not  necessary  to  remind  my 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  191 

auditors  that  a  larger  and  worthier  concep- 
tion of  the  nature  of  religion  now  controls 
the  mind  of  culture.  Religion  is  seen  to  be 
the  most  august  phenomenon  in  the  circle 
of  man's  intellectual  interests.  A  concep- 
tion of  its  nature  has  developed,  worthy  of 
the  place  occupied  by  religion  in  the  history 
of  the  human  race.  This  is,  indeed,  a  glori- 
ous development.  No  one  man  has  given 
us  the  clue  to  the  whole  truth,  or  made  a 
complete  answer  to  the  question :  What  is 
religion  ?  But,  one  working  from  one  point 
of  view,  and  another  working  from  another 
point  of  view,  gradually  there  has  unrolled 
before  us  the  broad  field  of  human  experi- 
ence upon  which  the  various  phenomena 
of  religion  appear.  We  have  had  many 
masters  in  this  science,  and  some  of  them 
have  been  gravely  misjudged.  Let  us  not 
fear  to  acknowledge  our  teachers,  be  they 
whom  they  may.  David  Hume  and  Auguste 
Comte,  Ferdinand  Baur  and  Herbert 
Spencer,  were  all  prophets  of  this  truth  in 
some  of  its  aspects,  in  that  they  pointed  us 
away  from  dogmas,  institutions,  and  tradi- 
tions straight  to  the  heart  of  human  life 
itself,  to  find  the  essential  source  of  religion. 


192      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

One  master  emphasized  one  aspect  of  con- 
sciousness, another  set  forth  another  aspect, 
as  affording  the  basis  of  religion.  Each 
was  contributing  to  the  truth :  Kant,  when 
he  laid  emphasis  on  the  ethical  basis ;  Hegel, 
when  he  unfolded  a  doctrine  of  the  Abso- 
lute ;  Schleiermacher,  when  he  turned,  alike 
from  morals  and  metaphysics,  to  seek  the 
source  of  religion,  as  Carpenter  well  says, 
in  "the  feeling  with  which  the  soul  con- 
templates the  varied  life  revealed  in  na- 
ture and  in  man."  There  have  been  many 
others  working  at  this  splendid  problem 
of  religion;  some  from  the  side  of  philo- 
sophy, some  from  the  side  of  anthropology, 
some  from  the  side  of  philology.  And 
whether  it  were  Burnouf,  or  Bunsen,  or 
Tylor,  or  Sir  John  Lubbock,  or  Max 
Miiller,  or  Theodore  Parker,  or  Carlyle,  or 
Emerson  —  all  were,  in  fact,  working  at  the 
one  thing,  aiming  at  the  one  end:  to  show 
that  religion  is  not  a  limited  gift  bestowed 
upon  one  nation  from  without,  in  the  con- 
crete form  of  a  system  of  belief;  —  it  is  a 
universal  estate;  the  effort  of  the  human 
intellect  in  every  race  and  nation  to  express 
and  to  organize  the  yearnings  of  the  soul  for 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  193 

knowledge  of  the  Infinite,  which  rise  un- 
bidden and  cry  out  after  God;  which  exist 
only  because  implanted  in  the  total  human 
consciousness,  by  its  Divine  Author. 

Obviously  it  is  impossible,  within  the 
limits  of  this  course  of  Lectures,  to  enu- 
merate the  distinctive  ideas  contained  in 
the  greater  religions  of  the  world.  But 
certain  important  generalizations  are  pos- 
sible. 

To  one  who  goes  forth  into  the  modern 
East,  bearing  an  open  mind  and  a  rever- 
ent heart,  the  spectacle  presented  by  non- 
Christian  faiths  is  impressive  in  a  high 
degree.  The  narrowing  power  of  local  as- 
sociations fosters  in  the  average  citizen  of 
the  West  a  misleading  sense  of  religious 
monopoly.  Accustomed  to  the  perpetual 
struggle  of  the  churches  against  irreligion 
and  non-religion,  witnessing  the  tendency 
of  Occidental  civilization  to  surrender  to 
the  instincts  of  godless  materialism,  he 
drifts  toward  the  notion  that  Christianity, 
with  its  cognate  Judaism,  practically  repre- 
sents the  active  force  of  religion  in  the 
world.  But,  as  one  advances  into  the  East, 
there  comes  a  widening  consciousness,  at 


194      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

times  an  overwhelming  consciousness,  that 
immense  non-Christian  forces  possess  seg- 
ments of  the  field  of  religion  more  vast 
than  those  occupied  by  Christianity.  He 
is  amazed  at  the  vitality  of  these  forces ;  the 
devotion  of  their  adherents,  the  depth  of 
their  foundations,  the  elemental  strength  of 
their  achievements.  He  perceives  their  cor- 
respondence with  Oriental  temperament, 
their  naturalness,  their  historic  perspective. 
He  had  been  told  that  the  non-Christian 
faiths  were  effete  survivals;  lingering  in 
senility  and  weakness.  On  the  contrary, 
they  appear  to  possess  great  vitality  and 
vigorous  champions.  Stately  temples  and 
mosques,  many  of  modern  date,  attract, 
and  apparently  satisfy,  thronging  congrega- 
tions. Numerous  priesthoods  wield  their 
spiritual  powers  with  dignity.  Colleges  and 
schools  adopt  methods  of  Western  pedagogy 
to  transmit  Eastern  faiths.  Institutions  like 
the  Central  Hindu  College  of  Benares  and 
the  Mohammedan  Anglo-Oriental  College 
at  Aligarh,  each  devoted  to  the  propagation 
of  anon-Christian  faith  by  the  best  available 
processes  of  Western  education,  astonish 
one  by  their  ardent  enthusiasm.    From  the 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  195 

Third  Annual  Report  of  the  Central  Hindu 
College  I  quote  the  following  passage  :* 
"The  religious  instruction  in  the  year  under 
report  continued  to  be  of  the  same  character 
as  in  the  preceding  years.  But  the  Com- 
mittee expect  that  it  will  shortly  take  more 
definite  shape.  After  careful  consideration 
and  extensive  discussion,  the  Board  decided 
in  December  last  on  a  scheme  for  a  Text- 
book of  Hinduism  for  the  purposes  of  re- 
ligious instruction.  This  Text-book  has 
since  been  drawn  up,  and  proof-copies  of  it 
are  now  in  circulation  amongst  the  members 
of  the  Board  of  Trustees  and  the  Managing 
Committee,  and  other  learned  Hindu  friends 
possessing  special  knowledge  on  the  sub- 
ject. It  is  hoped  that  the  Text-book  will 
be  finally  passed  by  the  Board  before  very 
long;  and  therefore  it  is  believed  that  not 
only  this  College,  but  many  other  institu- 
tions which  wish,  and  whose  circumstances 
allow  them,  to  follow  the  example  of  this 
College,  will  find  ready  provided  to  their 
hands  an  outline  of  the  basic  principles 
of  religion,  which  all  Hindus,  of  whatever 

1  Cf.  p.  8  of  the  report  published  by  the  Board  of  Trustees, 
Benares,  1902. 


196      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

special  sect,  will  be  glad  to  see  in  the  hands 
and  the  hearts  of  their  children."  It  is  by 
collating  examples  like  the  foregoing  that 
one  is  roused  from  the  contented  dream  of 
ignorance  touching  actual  religious  condi- 
tions in  the  world,  and  is  awakened  to  the 
fact  that  vigorous  and  eager  faiths  exist  out- 
side of  Christianity,  and  command  the  alle- 
giance and  love  of  millions  of  our  brethren. 
The  momentum  of  these  faiths  cannot  be 
estimated  by  superficial  observation.  One 
must  regard  them  in  perspective,  in  the 
light  of  their  own  histories,  if  one  would 
know  how  and  why  they  are  wrought  into 
the  fibre  of  the  East.  It  is  well  to  remem- 
ber a  saying  of  Confucius,  most  wonderful 
and  pregnant  as  an  utterance  delivered  five 
hundred  years  before  Christ :  "  To  under- 
stand the  present  we  must  study  the  past." 
As  one  gazes  back  into  this  past,  one  re- 
members that  all  the  controlling  religious 
forces  of  the  world  have  been  born  in  Asia. 
Asia  is  the  breeding-ground  of  religions; 
the  primal  home  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness of  the  human  race.  From  that  pri- 
mal home,  that  inexhaustible  well  of  reflec- 
tion and  feeling,  have  issued  the  dominant 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  197 

faiths:  Hinduism,  Buddhism,  Zoroastrian- 
ism,  Shinto,  Judaism,  Christianity,  Moham- 
medanism. All  were  begotten  in  the  Asiatic 
consciousness;  all  are  living  to-day.  The 
indigenous  religious  conceptions  of  the 
West,  aboriginal  faiths  of  Europe  and 
America,  have  vanished;  swept  away  by 
tides  of  the  religious  consciousness  that, 
under  the  forms  of  Judaism,  Islam,  and 
Christianity,  poured  out  of  the  East.  The 
Western  student  of  religion  gazes  wonder- 
ingly  into  these  depths  of  Asiatic  insight 
and  experience,  seeking  the  causes  that 
produced  them.  Fear  in  the  presence  of  in- 
calculable forces  of  nature  has  been  named 
as  the  principal  cause  of  religion.  That  the 
religious  instinct  may  be  stimulated  by  fear 
can  hardly  be  denied.  Yet,  when  one  per- 
ceives the  spirit  of  the  Vedas,  those  Hymns 
before  Sunrise  composed  fifteen  hundred  to 
two  thousand  years  earlier  than  the  New 
Testament  literature,  when  one  considers 
the  wonderful  joy  and  light  that  pervade 
them,  one  feels  that  other  causes  nobler 
than  fear,  and  more  powerful,  gave  to  the 
Asiatic  heart  its  passion  for  things  divine. 
The  sense  of  infinity  was  there.    Inherent 


198      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

in  the  soul  of  the  East  was  the  yearning  for 
correspondence  with  the  Infinite.  And,  on 
the  other  hand,  an  elemental  joy  was  there, 
blended  with  wonder  and  reverence,  in 
view  of  the  beauty  and  power  of  nature. 
The  splendid  sky,  the  silvery  sea,  the  sun, 
the  moon,  the  stars,  filled  the  Asiatic  soul 
with  a  gladness  but  in  part  eclipsed  by 
later  pessimism.  Men  felt  the  strength  of 
nature  ;  strong  to  destroy,  strong  to  uphold. 
They  adored  the  vitality  of  nature,  with  its 
mysterious  potency  of  reproduction.  In  the 
days  of  primitive  Aryan  religion,  these  fer- 
tile powers  of  nature  were  believed  to  be  so 
many  manifestations  of  the  Almighty  God, 
and  were  symbolized  as  such.  It  is  proba- 
ble that  the  Vedic  faith  of  the  early  Aryans 
was  not  true  polytheism,  but  rather  a  joyous 
and  noble  worship  of  the  Almighty  One  in 
many  symbolic  manifestations  on  the  broad, 
suggestive  field  of  nature.  That  polytheism 
should  eventuate  from  this  highly  emphatic 
symbolism  was  in  the  natural  line  of  proba- 
bility. Strongly  developed  nature  symbol- 
ism tends  toward  mythical  personifications 
of  the  powers  of  nature.  These  are  the 
precursors  of  strong,  reactionary  mysticism 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  199 

in  circles  of  culture,  and  the  reign  of  crude 
polytheism  over  the  popular  mind. 

At  some  prehistoric  stage  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Asiatic  religious  consciousness  there 
emerged,  I  believe,  from  the  mysticism  of 
culture,  reacting  against  the  crudeness  of 
polytheism,  two  strongly  marked,  opposite 
tendencies,  which  have  not  only  persisted, 
but  grown  in  power,  and,  thus  far,  have 
determined  the  religious  history  of  the 
world.  On  the  one  hand  is  the  tendency  to 
philosophical  and  practical  monotheism; 
the  earliest,  the  strongest,  the  most  virile 
tendency  of  religious  experience.  This  has 
shaped  the  life  of  the  West.  On  the  other 
hand  is  the  tendency  to  philosophical  pan- 
theism, with  its  habitual  lapses  into  popu- 
lar polytheism.  This  is  the  secondary,  the 
passive,  the  reflective  tendency  of  religious 
experience.  Thus  far  it  has  dominated  the 
life  of  the  East. 

Let  me  undertake  to  show  briefly  how 
these  two  vast  currents  of  religious  insight 
and  experience  have  poured  like  two  great 
rivers,  from  a  common  source  in  the  Asi- 
atic consciousness  to  the  opposite  sides  of 
the  globe.     For  reasons  which  may  be  in 


200      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

part  climatic  and  temperamental,  and  may 
remain  in  part  unknown,  the  monotheistic 
tendency  ever  has  been  in  its  simplest  forms 
a  Westward  tendency,  that  is  to  say,  a  ten- 
dency peculiarly  suited  to  Western  charac- 
teristics. One  perceives  it  in  the  magnifi- 
cent conceptions  of  early  Zoroastrianism, 
with  its  doctrine  of  the  Supreme  Spirit  and 
its  attractiveness  for  Greek  minds.  To 
describe  Zoroastrianism  as  a  simple  dual- 
ism is,  I  think,  to  do  injustice  to  its  spirit, 
and  to  misinterpret  the  struggle  of  the  soul 
which  it  portrays.  Depleted  and  weakened 
as  it  is  to-day,  there  are  not  wanting  sugges- 
tions of  its  monotheistic  majesty  among  the 
Parsis  of  India.  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of 
contact  with  that  interesting,  gracious,  culti- 
vated community;  the  survivors  of  a  Per- 
sia of  the  past,  whose  glories  departed  and 
whose  chance  of  influencing  the  West  disap- 
peared, under  the  overwhelming  visitation 
of  Islam  in  the  seventh  century  after  Christ. 
Still  more  forcibly  does  one  perceive  the 
monotheistic  tendency,  with  all  its  vigorous 
ethical  implications,  in  those  Semitic  devel- 
opments that  reach  their  consummation  in 
the  religion  of  Israel,  with  its  progressive 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  201 

conception  of  the  oneness,  the  sovereignty, 
the  moral  beauty  and  dignity  of  Jehovah, 
and  its  enormous  influence  on  the  religious 
thinking  of  Europe.  The  history  of  the 
Jews  in  Europe  is  the  history  of  a  race  ren- 
dered inextinguishable  by  the  virility  of  its 
monotheism.  Through  ages  of  dispersion 
and  distress,  the  scattered  race  has  main- 
tained ideal  unity  by  intense  devotion  to  a 
God  objectively  conceived.  The  God  of 
Abraham,  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob,  is  the 
Shepherd  of  Israel  forever. 

A  fierce  and  aggressive  monotheism  is 
associated  with  the  name  of  the  great  Ara- 
bian. Never  was  God  more  imperially 
personified  than  in  the  theology  of  Mo- 
hammed. It  was  essentially  a  conception 
suited  to  the  West  rather  than  to  the  East. 
Although  the  triumph  of  Islamic  rulers  in 
India  was  at  one  time  almost  complete,  and 
the  empire  of  the  Delhi  Mughals  was  the 
most  splendid  that  ever  arose  beyond  the 
Himalayas  until  the  days  of  English  sov- 
ereignty, it  is  interesting  to  see  the  uncon- 
scious assimilation  of  Hindu  thought  by 
hereditary  followers  of  the  Prophet.  The 
student  of  religion  in  India  can  think  of 


202      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

Mohammedanism  only  as  an  exotic.  It 
survives  there,  but  as  a  plant  diligently  nur- 
tured, never  domesticated. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  monotheistic  ten- 
dency is  brought  to  its  crown  and  its  fulfill- 
ment in  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ.  Here  is 
monotheism  which  indeed  lends  itself  read- 
ily to  expression  in  terms  of  the  Western 
temperament,  yet  has  a  vastness  of  design, 
a  universality  of  content,  a  mystical  depth 
by  which  it  exhausts  the  Western  power  of 
interpretation  and  demands  the  prophetic 
insight  of  the  East  also.  The  religion  of 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  religion  of  Divine  mani- 
festation in  the  flesh,  the  Incarnation  of  the 
Son  of  God,  to  redeem  the  whole  human 
race  to  right  knowledge  of  God,  through 
a  mighty  salvation  of  love  and  holiness. 
Alone  among  the  religions  of  the  world  it 
holds  within  itself  an  amazing  balance  of 
Occidental  and  Oriental  qualities.  Looked 
at  from  our  familiar  point  of  view,  it  seems 
to  be  distinctively  the  religion  for  the  West, 
so  perfectly  does  it  coincide  with  the  senti- 
ment of  the  Western  heart  and  the  genius 
of  the  Western  intellect.  But,  as  our  know- 
ledge of  religious   insight  and  experience 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  203 

outside  of  Christianity  increases,  we  per- 
ceive qualities  in  the  Oriental  mind  and 
tendencies  in  the  Oriental  temperament  for 
which  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  seems 
especially  provided;  we  become  conscious 
of  depths  in  that  religion  which  can  be 
sounded  only  by  those  who  have  the  mind 
and  temperament  of  the  East  by  birth  or 
by  sympathetic  assimilation.  We  begin  to 
realize  that  Christianity  is  vaster  than  we 
knew.  The  churches  of  the  West  which 
have  looked  upon  themselves  proudly  as  the 
dispensers  of  this  religion  may  have  mas- 
tered its  rudiments  only.  The  mystery  of 
God  in  Christ,  which  was  hid  from  ages  and 
generations,  until  the  Incarnation  of  the 
Living  Word  was  accomplished  in  the  full- 
ness of  time,  may  contain  inner  glories  as 
yet  undreamed  of;  glories  not  accessible 
until  the  eager  West  consents  to  sit  as  a 
disciple  at  the  feet  of  the  ancient  East,  learn- 
ing through  the  Oriental  consciousness,  to 
search  the  deep  things  of  God. 

The  history  of  the  Western  world  has 
been  the  history  of  the  assimilation  and  ex- 
pression of  Christian  monotheism  in  char- 
acteristic modes  determined  by  the  genius 


204      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

and  temperament  of  the  Occidental  con- 
sciousness. In  the  foregoing  Lecture  I 
pointed  out  that  the  sense  of  external  reality 
is  the  fundamental  factor  in  Western  think- 
ing. For  the  average  European  no  veil  of 
maya  enwraps  the  actuality  of  existence. 
All  is  real,  and  as  it  seems  to  be.  The 
personal  Ego  is  without  illusion.  The 
phenomenal  universe  on  which  it  looks 
is  as  real  as  itself.  Relationships  are  real. 
Society  is  a  fact  of  experience.  At  the 
background  of  the  Cosmos  is  the  infinite, 
eternal,  personal  Real,  of  whom  are  all 
things,  through  whom  all  things  consist:  the 
actual  God,  "unchangeable  in  His  Being, 
wisdom,  power,  holiness,  justice,  goodness, 
and  truth."  It  was  inevitable,  even  as  also 
it  was  desirable,  that  the  Occidental  con- 
sciousness, moving  in  the  realm  of  religious 
insight  and  experience,  should  assimilate 
and  accentuate  aspects  of  Christian  mono- 
theism making  direct  appeal  to  the  sense  of 
external  reality.  It  has  therefore  been  the 
distinctive  function  of  the  West  to  deal  with 
the  more  plain  and  obvious  sides  of  the 
Christian  religion,  as  distinguished  from 
its  esoteric  and  mystical  depths.    Speaking 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  205 

broadly,  the  outcome  of  religious  insight 
and  experience  in  the  West  has  been  two- 
fold; profound  appreciation  of  the  insti- 
tutional side  of  Christianity,  and  profound 
insight  into  its  ethical  values.  From  the 
beginning  of  Christian  civilization  in  the 
West,  the  Church,  with  its  institutions,  gov- 
ernments, and  forms,  has  been  the  major  in- 
terest. While  near,  in  time,  to  its  Eastern 
sources,  the  issues  under  debate  were  chiefly 
metaphysical;  projections  into  the  West  of 
the  East's  eternal  interest  in  the  Unseen. 
There  have  been  recurrences  of  these  pro- 
found solicitudes  of  faith,  as  in  the  Arminian 
and  Calvinistic  discussions  of  Divine  mys- 
teries. But,  as  Western  civilization  has  at- 
tained fuller  self-consciousness,  it  has  moved 
away  from  the  esoteric  and  concerned  itself 
with  the  institutional.  Even  the  Protestant 
Reformation  was  largely  an  institutional 
movement.  External  questions  were  in- 
volved; the  authority  of  the  pope,  sacerdotal 
powers,  liberty  of  access  to  Holy  Scripture, 
freedom  of  the  lay  conscience.  It  is  in- 
teresting to  reflect  that  the  enormous  mag- 
nitude gained  by  questions  of  episcopacy 
and  presbytery,  exhibits  the  strength  of  the 


206      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

Western  passion  for  institutions.  The 
Baptist  controversy  is  over  a  question  of 
external  mode.  Independency  in  all  its 
forms  is,  in  the  last  analysis,  an  external 
question.  An  Oriental  mind,  to  which 
churches  are  nothing  as  compared  with 
mystical  relationships  of  the  soul  with  God, 
looks  with  amazement,  not  unmixed  with 
disdain,  at  the  stormy  annals  of  Western 
ecclesiasticism,  and  the  rivalries  of  sects 
holding  common  faith  in  matters  of  the 
spirit,  yet  dividing  on  matters  of  adminis- 
tration. It  is  difficult  for  an  Oriental  to 
understand  that,  in  this  emphasis  upon  in- 
stitutional religion,  and  this  activity  of  con- 
science in  matters  of  form  and  order,  the 
West  has  been  fulfilling  itself  normally,  and 
has  been  working  out,  through  the  painful 
process  of  sectarian  struggle,  certain  stages 
in  the  evolution  of  truth,  as  well  as  certain 
problems  of  civilization,  which,  in  the  long 
outcome,  shall  work  together  for  the  good  of 
the  world.  It  is  no  fatalism  to  say  that  the 
history  of  Christianity  in  the  West  could  not 
have  been  other  than  it  is.  Given  the  qual- 
ities of  the  Occidental  consciousness,  and 
the  religious  result  must  have  been  what  it 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  207 

is.  Churches  and  sects  have  their  weak- 
nesses, and  those  whose  major  interest  is 
churchmanship  have  their  limitations;  yet 
it  is  necessary  for  the  ultimate  balance  of 
the  world's  religious  thinking  that  some- 
where in  the  world  truth  shall  be  made  con- 
crete through  formulation  and  conscience 
shall  be  made  virile  through  loyalty  to  in- 
stitutions. But  the  outcome  of  religious 
insight  and  experience  in  the  West  is  some- 
thing greater  than  an  appreciation  of  the  in- 
stitutional side  of  Christianity.  The  same 
qualities  that  have  achieved  this  result  have 
rendered  a  larger  service  to  humanity.  The 
Western  genius  for  institutions  proceeds, 
as  we  have  seen,  from  the  sense  of  external 
reality.  From  the  same  source  comes  that 
profound  insight  into  the  ethical  values  of 
Christian  monotheism,  which  is  the  glory  of 
Western  religious  experience.  The  sense 
of  personal  reality  carries  with  it  the  entire 
category  of  ethical  relationships,  Divine  and 
human;  the  morality  of  God;  the  morality 
of  duty ;  the  moral  value  of  conduct  in  every 
empirical  sphere,  personal,  domestic,  social ; 
the  excellence  of  virtue,  the  sinfulness  of 
sin.     It  belongs  to  the  Western  conception 


208      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

of  religion  to  interpret  God  and  human 
life  in  terms  of  character.  The  glory  of 
the  Divine  being  is  discovered  to  be  good- 
ness ;  the  end  of  the  Divine  purpose  is  right- 
eousness ;  the  goal  of  the  human  individual 
is  conformity  to  the  ideal,  which  is  Christ. 
These  observations  are  the  more  worthy  of 
attention  because  they  seem  to  ignore  the 
long  indictment  brought  by  the  East  against 
the  ethics  of  Western  Christianity.  With 
the  gravity  of  truth  the  East  charges  the 
West  with  unscrupulous  infraction  of  every 
ethical  principle;  it  points  out  the  discrep- 
ancy between  the  Christian  ideal  and  the 
political,  commercial,  and  social  practices 
of  Christian  nations.  The  points  in  this  in- 
dictment are  well  taken;  the  West  cannot 
justify  itself  before  its  Oriental  accuser. 
With  my  sympathy  and  admiration  for 
Eastern  peoples  I  should  be  the  last  to 
ignore  the  ghastly  chronicle  of  injustice, 
irregularity,  and  intolerance  written  in  the 
annals  of  the  West.  I  neither  ignore  nor 
minimize  the  burden  of  sins,  national  and 
international,  laid  at  the  door  of  our  Chris- 
tianized civilization.  But  I  am  conscious 
of  a  fact  in  the  life  of  the  West  that  lies 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  209 

deeper  in  the  heart  of  things  than  these 
lamentable  infractions  of  morality.  It  re- 
mains true  that  the  Occidental  conscience 
repudiates  and  condemns  these  unethical 
excesses  with  a  strenuous  detestation  born 
of  a  growing  appreciation  of  the  relation  of 
Jesus  Christ  to  the  affairs  of  common  life. 
It  may  not  be  offered  as  an  excuse  for  the 
crimes  of  Western  civilization  that  it  is  still 
in  the  season  of  youth  as  compared  with  the 
hoary  institutions  of  the  East ;  but  it  can  be 
affirmed  with  certainty  that  the  wrong-doing 
of  men  and  nations  is  continually  becoming 
more  abhorrent  to  the  Western  social  con- 
science, and  that  the  desire  for  cleanness 
and  righteousness  of  procedure  at  home  and 
abroad  is  the  distinctive  form  under  which 
religious  insight  and  experience  manifests 
itself  throughout  the  Western  world  at  the 
present  time.  The  "  ethical  revival "  is  con- 
sidered by  right-minded  Christians  insep- 
arable from  any  substantial  religious  pro- 
gress in  individuals  or  in  communities.  This 
is  admirable,  and  may  well  give  courage  to 
those  that  have  been  cast  down  by  the  ex- 
cesses of  Western  civilization,  with  its  mad- 
ness for  things  and  its  insatiate  delight  in 


210      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

the  visible.  Yet  it  is  not  probable  that  any 
"ethical  revival,"  in  the  form  of  temporary 
stimulation  of  the  social  conscience,  or  tem- 
porary rehabilitation  of  ideals,  can  correct  a 
deficiency  in  Western  religious  development 
which,  by  the  most  thoughtful,  is  recognized 
as  not  only  grave  but,  possibly,  increasing. 
To  many  who  look  intently  upon  our  Occi- 
dental life,  in  its  relation  to  the  spiritual 
realm,  there  appears  the  suggestion  of  in- 
creasing shallowness  and  externalism.  The 
Western  craving  for  the  concrete  and  the 
visible  is,  apparently,  impinging  on  the  do- 
main of  the  soul,  and  attempting  to  satisfy 
its  vast  aspiration  for  the  unseen  and  the 
ultimate  with  codes  of  social  morality  and 
regulations  of  philanthropic  duty.  Religion 
is  tending  more  and  more  to  confinement 
within  the  sphere  of  practical  ethics.  The 
great  metaphysical  beliefs,  which  were  as 
wings  to  the  souls  of  prophets  and  apostles, 
are  being  folded  up  and  put  aside,  as  in- 
compatible with  the  active  interests  of  a 
world  of  men.  In  other  words,  the  mystical 
side  of  religious  experience  —  that  which 
contemplates  the  soul  of  the  worshiper  as 
in  immediate  communion  with  the  Divine 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  211 

Essence  —  is  in  danger  of  being  thrust  aside 
by  the  eager  will  to  do.  The  value  of  med- 
itation is  underrated.  Action  controls  the 
attention  of  the  age  too  exclusively.  The 
worth  of  religion  is  estimated  by  its  immedi- 
ate effect  as  a  social  dynamic.  This  is  stim- 
ulating, and  imparts  to  the  Church  some- 
thing of  the  energy  and  bustle  of  the  street. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  also  perilous.  We  are 
paying  too  high  a  price  for  what  is  called 
practical  or  applied  Christianity.  Modern 
Christianity  cannot  afford  to  sacrifice  mys- 
ticism to  machinery.  Amiel's  lament  can- 
not forever  go  unheeded,  as  the  sigh  of  a 
dreamer:  "We  have  lost  the  mystical  sense: 
and  what  is  religion  without  mysticism? 
A  rose  without  perfume." l  I  do  not  forget 
that  Christianity  in  the  West  always  has 
had  its  mystics ;  those  to  whom  the  contem- 
plative life  was  more  real  than  the  life  of 
action.  But  the  mystics  of  the  West  always 
have  been  somewhat  in  disrepute.  The 
boast  of  the  Occidental  is  his  plain  common 
sense,  tuned  to  the  hard  facts  of  existence. 
He  is  wont  to  pity  or  condemn  the  mystic  as 
lacking  this  admirable  quality.    To  this  ele- 

1  Cf.  Journal  Intime,  vol.  i.  p.  178.    Macmillan,  1895. 


212      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

vation  of  institutionalism  above  mysticism, 
of  the  outward  organization  and  the  out- 
ward scientific  demonstration  above  the  in- 
ward immediateness  of  contact  with  God, 
I  trace  the  ominous  limitations  that  appear 
in  our  modern  religious  thinking,  and,  in 
particular,  the  decline  of  reverence  in  Amer- 
ican thought  and  manners.  "The  world 
is  too  much  with  us."  The  power  of  the 
Unseen,  the  majesty  of  the  Infinite,  lie  too 
lightly  on  hearts  that,  by  the  discontinu- 
ance of  meditation,  are  becoming  strangers 
to  themselves  and  God.  There  is  reason  to 
hope  that  a  reaction  has  begun  in  certain 
quarters.  It  is  possible  that,  in  part,  our 
better  understanding  of  the  spirit  of  the 
East,  and,  in  part,  our  study  of  psychology, 
are  tempering  our  externalism  and,  in  a 
measure,  restoring  the  balance  on  the  side 
of  the  spiritual.  One  cannot  but  study  the 
religious  signs  of  the  times  with  grave  solici- 
tude. It  is  evident  that  there  remains  much 
to  be  desired  in  the  religious  development  of 
the  West.  It  would  be  in  accord  with  the 
large  equities  of  time,  that  the  thoughtful 
East,  for  which  our  ardent  realism  may 
have  a  helpful  message,  should  be  to  the 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  213 

Occidental  world  of  the  twentieth  century 
a  prophet  and  mediator  of  the  Unseen. 

I  have  referred,  in  a  former  part  of  this 
Lecture,  to  monotheism  as  the  earliest,  the 
strongest,  and  the  most  virile  tendency  of 
religious  experience  that  appears  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  early  Asiatic  conscious- 
ness. I  have  shown  that  it  moved  toward, 
and  shaped  the  life  of,  the  West.  From 
that  primal  spring  of  the  world's  prehistoric 
spiritual  life  there  moved  also  a  river  of 
experience  that  set  toward  the  East.  It 
seemed  to  follow  a  course  made  necessary 
by  climate,  by  physical  and  psychological 
conditions.  Its  tendency  was  toward  philo- 
sophical pantheism.  Its  modes  of  self-reali- 
zation were  idealistic,  reflective,  esoteric. 
Inherent  in  the  religious  consciousness  of 
Indian  civilization  was  the  spirit  of  other- 
worldliness,  combined  with  intensity  and 
constancy  of  religious  feeling.  The  im- 
pulse toward  speculative  inquiry  was  con- 
stitutional, and  became  strongly  reinforced, 
as  the  doctrine  of  may  a,  the  unreality  of  the 
visible  world,  developed  into  a  fundamental 
tenet  of  philosophy.  The  relation  of  poly- 
theism to  this  sense  of  the  unreality  of  the 


214      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

visible  world  is  obvious.  For  cultivated 
minds  polytheism  was  in  effect  a  sacramen- 
tal suggestion  of  the  invisible.  Each  idol 
and  idol-symbol  was  but  a  symbol  of  some 
esoteric  fact,  condition,  or  personality  sub- 
sisting beneath  the  visible.  But  for  the 
common  mind  polytheism  had  not  this  eso- 
teric background.  It  became,  in  itself,  of 
ultimate  value;  and,  so  becoming,  its  degen- 
eration was  continual  and  enormous.  The 
Aryan  nature-symbolism,  at  first  splen- 
didly suggestive,  assimilated  low  Dravidian, 
and  other  non-Aryan,  forms  of  animism, 
growing  corrupt,  puerile,  and  hopelessly 
intricate.  Popular  Hinduism  and  popular 
Buddhism  are  degenerate  forms  of  their 
great  originals.  They  have  preserved  for 
centuries  aspects  of  the  most  unsatisfactory 
character.  Perhaps  the  most  regrettable 
element  in  the  present  situation  is  the  hold 
which  these  degenerate  forms  of  religious 
experience  have  on  the  imagination  and  the 
moral  sense  of  the  masses.  It  is  with  rever- 
ence that  I  refer  to  these  painful  matters. 
In  lands  like  India  and  Japan,  the  natural 
feelings  and  sympathies  of  the  people  are 
rich  and  deep.     The  influence  of  religion 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  215 

touches  and  interprets  every  aspect  of  life. 
It  is  therefore  with  the  emotions  of  one 
witnessing  a  tragedy  that  one  considers  the 
effect  upon  sensitive  and  spiritual  natures 
of  immersion  in  influences  emanating  from 
degenerate  popular  polytheism.  One  can 
hardly  speak  too  strongly  of  the  evil  and 
sorrow  wrought  thereby.  The  complexity 
of  popular  polytheism  is  relatively  disas- 
trous to  the  ethical  sense.  The  life  of  the 
individual  cowers,  as  before  a  dust-storm, 
in  the  vortex  of  swarming  deities.  No 
opportunity  remains  for  the  soul  to  lift 
itself  up,  to  attain  the  simplicity  of  one 
ethical  attitude;  to  worship  and  to  love. 
Sir  Alfred  Lyall,  in  his  "Asiatic  Studies," 
has  depicted  with  extraordinary  fidelity  the 
complexity  of  polytheism  in  a  single  district 
of  North  India.  One  obtains  a  similar  view 
in  Sir  William  Hunter's  "Annals  of  Rural 
Bengal,"  and,  in  a  different  way,  but  not 
less  effectively,  in  the  monographs  and 
tables  of  the  Imperial  Indian  Census  of 
1902.  The  confusion  of  the  moral  sense, 
induced  by  the  complexity  of  polytheism,  is, 
it  may  be  feared,  increased  by  practices  of 
flagrant  immorality  associated  with  some 


216      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

polytheistic  cults.  In  the  interest  of  truth 
and  justice  one  should  speak  most  guard- 
edly of  the  dark  aspersions  cast  by  public 
rumor  upon  certain  non-Christian  sects.  It 
is  to  be  remembered  that  similar  reports 
were  circulated,  whether  through  misappre- 
hension or  through  enmity,  concerning 
Christian  sects  of  the  first  century.  Un- 
happily the  probability  is  strong  that  there 
is  substantial  truth  in  the  current  surmise, 
and  that  a  degree  of  animalism  blends  with 
certain  forms  of  religious  practice.  Beyond 
question,  however,  the  note  of  pessimism 
accords  with  the  general  outcome  of  poly- 
theistic religion.  Sinister  possibilities  dog 
the  steps  of  the  living  and  ambush  the  path 
of  the  dead.  In  certain  instances  the  bitter- 
ness thus  infused  into  sorrow  is  exquisite. 
I  know  no  more  striking  example  of  this 
religious  intensification  of  natural  sorrow 
than  is  presented  at  one  of  the  Japanese 
shrines,  the  Tennoji  Temple  at  Osaka.  I 
have  to  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to 
Mr.  John  E.  Hail  of  Osaka,  who  at  my 
request  obtained  at  first  hand  from  Japan- 
ese parents  the  statements  of  belief  here 
recorded.     The  historical  statements   are 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  217 

sustained  by  the  authority  of  Professor  Basil 
Hall  Chamberlain  and  Sir  Ernest  Satow. 
In  the  southeastern  section  of  Osaka,  within 
an  inclosure  of  one  hundred  and  forty  acres, 
stands  the  Temple  of  Tennoji,  which  is  said 
to  be  the  oldest  Buddhist  temple  in  Japan. 
It  was  founded  by  Umayado  no  Oji,  born 
A.  D.  572.  A  prince  of  noblest  spirit,  he 
served  as  regent  under  the  Empress  Sui-ko. 
At  his  death  the  title  Shotoku,  "  Holy  Good- 
ness," was  conferred  upon  him.  Shotoku- 
Taishi,  the  Saint-Prince,  became  patron 
saint  of  deceased  children,  and,  amidst  the 
numerous  sacred  buildings  within  the  Osaka 
inclosure,  are  the  shrines  of  children,  filled 
with  dolls,  toys,  and  children's  clothing, 
offered  in  commemoration  by  bereaved 
parents.  The  Japanese  are  accustomed  to 
use  the  figure  of  a  mountain,  dark  and 
lonely,  to  express  the  idea  of  death.  To 
such  a  mountain  the  spirits  of  little  children 
must  be  conveyed  at  death,  being  ferried 
across  the  black  waters  of  a  silent  river. 
Hence  a  small  sum  of  money  is  put  in  the 
little  round  coffin,  with  the  dead,  to  pay  the 
ferriage  across  the  black  river.  A  small 
candle  is  put  into  the  little  hand.     The 


218      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

candle  is  to  furnish  light  to  find  the  narrow- 
path  that  leads  over  the  dark  mountain  of 
death.  The  baby  feet  are  expected  to  totter 
up  the  path,  over  the  mountain,  to  the  half- 
light,  half-dark  country  which  lies  on  the 
other  side.  But  the  mountain  way  over 
which  the  children  must  make  their  journey 
passes  through  gloomy  forests.  At  times 
the  wind  sweeps  down  through  the  tall  pines 
and  across  the  path  the  little  feet  must  tread. 
If  by  chance  the  wind  blows  out  the  tiny 
taper,  then  the  infant  pilgrim  must  grope  its 
way  in  the  dark,  wandering  there  forever- 
more.  Spirits  of  evil  assign  unchildlike 
tasks,  that  weary  the  little  hands.  A  Japan- 
ese mother  has  given  utterance  to  her  an- 
guish in  the  following  lines,  translated  by 
the  wife  of  Bishop  Harris  of  Tokyo :  — 

"The  mountain  of  death  is  lonely  and  drear, 
And  the  dusk  of  its  shadows  the  bravest  might  fear; 
How  then,  my  daughter,  my  wee,  winsome  child, 
Wilt  thou  grope  thy  way  o'er  the  mountain  so  weary 

and  wild  ? 
Thou  knowest  not  reason,  nor  thoughts  high  nor  deep, 
Thou  art  wise  enough  only  low  grievings  to  weep. 
Thy  little  feet  totter,  so  tremblingly  slow, 
How  canst  thou  over  the  mountain  thus  motherless  go  ? 
Oh!  the  heart  of  thy  mother   is  breaking  with  grief 

here  below." 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  219 

The  parents,  after  the  burial  of  their  child, 
go  to  one  of  the  children's  shrines  in  the 
Temple  grounds,  and,  giving  in  the  name 
of  their  dead  child,  together  with  an  offer- 
ing, receive  in  return  therefor  a  strip  of 
wood  on  which  is  written  the  new  name  of 
the  child.  This  is  deposited  in  a  fountain 
whose  water  issues  from  the  mouth  of  a 
huge  stone  turtle.  If  the  name-slip  remains 
within  the  basin  of  the  fountain,  it  is  a  sign 
that  all  is  going  well  with  the  child.  If  the 
waters  bear  the  name-slip  out  of  the  basin, 
it  is  a  sign  that  prayer  has  been  in  vain; 
the  unhappy  spirit  of  the  child  must  wan- 
der forever.  I  reproduce  the  detail  of  this 
belief  as  an  illustration,  which  seems  to  me 
singularly  pathetic  as  well  as  singularly  ap- 
posite, of  the  sadness  that  broods  over  the 
shrines  of  popular  polytheism,  reflecting  it- 
self often  in  the  faces  of  those  who  worship 
there.  It  is  impossible,  within  the  space  at 
my  disposal,  to  treat  adequately  this  pessi- 
mistic tendency,  as  it  has  found  expression 
in  institutions,  customs,  and  ideas  devel- 
oped under  polytheistic  conditions.  Some 
of  these  exhibit  lugubrious  and  horrifying 
characteristics.     Of  such  quality  was  the 


220      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

cult  of  Thagi,  a  priesthood  of  murderers,  of 
which  the  late  Colonel  Meadows  Taylor  has 
given  the  most  striking  account  in  litera- 
ture. The  practice  of  Sati,  the  self-immola- 
tion of  widows,  needs  to  be  understood  from 
the  point  of  view  of  Indian  self-conscious- 
ness, in  order  to  discover  the  august  sur- 
render that  entered  into  it.  Mrs.  Sarojini 
Naidu,  from  whom  already  I  have  quoted, 
gives  in  her  exquisite  verses  insight  into  the 
heroic  passion  of  Sati  :  — 

"Lamp  of  my  life,  the  lips  of  death 
Have  blown  thee  out  with  their  sudden  breath; 
Naught  shall  revive  thy  vanished  spark  — 
Love,  must  I  dwell  in  the  living  dark? 

"Tree  of  my  life,  Death's  cruel  foot 
Hath  crushed  thee  down  to  thy  hidden  root; 
Naught  shall  restore  thy  glory  fled  — 
Shall  the  blossom  live  when  the  tree  is  dead? 

"  Life  of  my  life,  Death's  bitter  sword 
Hath  severed  us  like  a  broken  word; 
Rent  us  in  twain  who  are  but  one  — 
Shall  the  flesh  survive  when  the  soul  is  gone  ?  "  * 

I  might  speak  also  of  the  principle  of 
Karma,  "the  doctrine  of  the  dead,"  which, 
although  probably  Dravidian  and  not  prim- 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  40. 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  221 

itive,  has  overspread  Oriental  life  with  a  sin- 
ister pathos  not  devoid  of  majesty.  Karma 
is  an  attempt  to  give  a  philosophical  state- 
ment founded  on  transmigration,  concern- 
ing the  sorrow  and  evil  of  life.  It  is  an 
interpretation  of  suffering  as  penalty  in- 
flicted under  a  self-acting  system  of  justice, 
for  faults  committed  in  some  previous  life. 
Such  are  examples  of  the  atmosphere  of 
pessimism  cast  over  existence  as  the  out- 
come of  polytheistic  tendency.  They  might 
be  multiplied.  They  grow  more  subtle  in 
ethical  illusiveness  as  philosophy  under- 
takes to  press  through  the  crude  objectivity 
of  popular  polytheism  and  find  a  way  back 
into  the  esoteric.  The  most  subtle  pessi- 
mism is  that  of  the  Vedanta  philosophy. 
The  end  of  existence  is  the  liberation  of  the 
soul  from  bondage;  ignorance  is  the  cause 
of  bondage ;  salvation  is  through  knowledge. 
But  knowledge  is  the  property  of  the  soul, 
which  is  separate  alike  from  the  mind  and 
the  body,  having  no  contact  with  nature 
and  no  interest  in  the  ethics  of  conduct  and 
personal  character.  The  soul  finds  its 
emancipation  in  absolute  idealism,  leaving 
the  mind  and  the  body  to  follow  their  natu- 


222      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

ral  impulses,  which,  being  part  of  the  encom- 
passing system  of  phenomenal  distinctions, 
possess  but  an  apparent  reality. 

Thus  far,  in  touching  the  subject  of  re- 
ligious insight  and  experience  beyond  the 
boundaries  of  Christianity,  I  have  confined 
my  observations  to  the  side  of  Oriental  con- 
sciousness, which,  to  the  European,  seems 
inscrutable,  not  to  say  repellent.  There  is 
reason  to  fear  that  much  Western  criticism 
of  the  more  obscure  aspects  of  Oriental  re- 
ligious thinking  has  been  unintelligent  as 
well  as  unsympathetic.  Race  prejudice  is  a 
dangerous  dynamic  in  any  set  of  circum- 
stances. It  is  especially  dangerous  in  the 
field  of  religious  criticism.  When  compli- 
cated with  lack  of  insight  into  the  higher  sym- 
bolism of  the  Oriental  faiths,  it  may  result 
in  extraordinary  obscurantism  amounting 
sometimes  to  grotesque  misapprehension. 
Nothing  is  more  becoming  in  those  who  de- 
sire the  Christianization  of  the  world  than 
reverent  reserve  of  criticism  in  the  pre- 
sence of  matters  and  manners  pertaining  to 
ancestral  religious  institutions  of  the  East. 
There  may  be  much,  even  in  institutions 
and  practices  obviously  irreconcilable  with 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  223 

Western  ethical  tradition,  which  holds  for 
the  Oriental  consciousness  spiritual  mean- 
ings that  we  have  not  conceived  and  that 
we,  the  offspring  of  other  traditions,  would 
be  slow  of  heart  to  comprehend.  Rather 
should  we,  who  aspire  toward  the  attitude 
of  Jesus  Christ  in  relation  to  foreign  races 
and  religions,  meet  with  open-minded  re- 
spect each  expression  of  Eastern  thought 
that  points,  however  vaguely,  toward  mo- 
notheism, even  if  unaccompanied  by  the 
specialized  modes  of  Christian  thinking. 
There  is  rugged  justice  in  words  written  by 
Charles  Kingsley  to  Miss  Susan  Wink- 
worth,  in  a  letter  dated  "  Eversley,  April  18, 
1870."  He  writes :  "  I  trust  that  no  bigotry 
here  will  interfere  with  men  who,  if  they 
are  not  at  the  point  to  which  St.  Paul  and 
St.  John  attained,  are  trying  honestly  to 
reach  that  to  which  Abraham,  David,  and 
the  Jewish  prophets  rose;  a  respectable 
height,  I  should  have  thought."  x 

The  large  fact  to  be  considered  by  those 
who  would  look  with  sympathy  into  the 
religious  insight  and  experience  of  the  East, 
is  the  age-long  struggle   for  philosophical 

1  Cf.  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles  Kingsley,  vol.  ii.  p.  318. 


224      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

monotheism.  Projecting  itself  more  and 
more  into  the  foreground,  the  monotheistic 
instinct  of  the  Aryan  is  asserted  under  tem- 
peramental conditions  predisposing  to  pan- 
theism. The  outcome  promises  to  be  the 
most  profound  mystical  conception  of  a 
personal  Deity  to  which  man  has  yet  at- 
tained. This,  for  example,  is  the  deeper 
meaning  of  Vaishnavism;  a  thirsting  after 
the  personality  of  God.  This  spirit  breathes 
in  the  Gita  —  that  Divine  Song  rightly 
called  "the  loveliest  flower  in  the  garden  of 
Sanskrit  literature."  It  may  be  affirmed 
that  the  soul  of  the  East  has  never  rested 
in  abstract  pantheism,  much  less  in  popu- 
lar polytheism.  Always,  in  its  own  way, 
that  is  to  say,  with  the  mysticism  born  of 
the  pantheistic  temperament,  the  East  has 
experienced  reactions  toward  the  earliest 
faith  of  the  Aryan  consciousness,  faith  in  a 
personal  almighty  God.  Even  the  philo- 
sophical atheism  of  the  Higher  Buddhism 
has  not  been  exempt  from  these  reac- 
tions. 

At  the  present  time  thrilling  interest  in- 
vests this  situation  in  all  parts  of  the  East- 
ern world.    Not  only  is  the  current  of  the 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  225 

higher  Oriental  religious  thinking  setting 
away  from  the  idol-temple  and  the  confus- 
ing ethics  of  polytheism,  but,  with  a  confi- 
dent accent  in  startling  contrast  with  the 
tone  of  Oriental  thought  at  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  personality 
of  God  is  affirmed  as  the  necessary  object 
of  that  enormous  religious  fervor  which  is 
the  glory  of  the  East.  That  affirmation  of 
personality  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  identical 
with  the  theism  of  the  West.  It  shrinks  — 
and  may  forever  withhold  itself  —  from  the 
extreme  anthropomorphism  that  has  been 
the  characteristic  limitation  of  Western  the- 
ologies. It  is  true  —  and  may  forever  re- 
main true  —  to  that  pantheistic  dread  of 
definition,  the  absence  of  which  dread  has 
tended  to  externalize  the  religion  of  the 
West.  But,  after  the  manner  of  its  own 
temperamental  tendency,  the  soul  of  the 
East  seeks  the  living  God.  It  would  be 
rash  to  predict  the  further  reconstructions 
of  religious  thinking  that  may  occur  in 
communities  and  nations  of  the  East.  It  is 
not  for  us  to  know  the  times  and  the  sea- 
sons, which  are  in  the  hand  of  God.  Yet, 
without  risk  of  prejudging  open  questions, 


226      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

one  may  refer  to  certain  activities  in  the 
modern  East  that  indicate  a  widening  in- 
terest in  the  Christian  point  of  view. 

A  new  social  spirit  is  organizing  itself 
at  many  points.  Its  solicitudes  are  essen- 
tially Christian.  Fundamental  questions  of 
knowledge  and  virtue  press  upon  the  hearts 
of  men,  developing  in  them  ethical  sim- 
plicity of  purpose  founded  on  intelligent 
worship  of  Divine  Personality.  As  an  ex- 
ample (selected  from  among  many)  I  tran- 
scribe some  of  the  principles  of  the  Arya 
Samaj  (Vedic  Church),  published  by  au- 
thority at  Lahore,  India,  in  1900:  — 

The  Primordiac  Root  —  the  Eternal,  Unseen  Sustainer 
—  of  all  true  knowledge  and  of  objects  made  known  by 
true  knowledge  —  is  the  Supreme  God. 

God  is  the  personification  of  True  Existence,  Intelli- 
gence and  Bliss.  He  is  Formless,  Almighty,  Just, 
Benevolent,  Unborn,  Endless  and  Infinite,  Unchangeable, 
Beginningless,  Incomparable,  Support  of  all,  Lord  of  all, 
All-pervading,  Omniscient,  and  Controller  from  within  of 
all,  Undecaying,  Imperishable,  Fearless,  Eternal,  Holy, 
and  Maker  of  the  whole  creation.  To  Him  alone  is 
worship  due. 

We  should  ever  be  ready  to  accept  truth  and  to 
renounce  untruth. 

All  acts  should  be  done  in  accordance  with  Dharma, 
that  is,  after  deliberating  what  is  Right  and  Wrong. 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  227 

The  prime  object  of  the  Arya  Samaj  —  Vedic  Church 
—  is  to  do  Upkar  to  the  world,  that  is,  to  promote 
Physical,  Spiritual,  and  Social  Good. 

Our  conduct  toward  all  should  be  actuated  by  Love, 
Righteousness,  and  Justice. 

Every  one  should  not  be  content  with  promoting  his 
own  good  only;  on  the  contrary,  he  should  look  for  his 
own  good  in  promoting  the  good  of  all. 

All  men  should  subordinate  themselves  to  the  laws  of 
society  calculated  to  promote  general  well-being  ;  they 
should  be  free  in  regard  to  laws  for  promoting  individual 
well-being. 

Instruments  like  the  above,  breathing  the 
spirit  of  large  tenderness,  moral  earnestness, 
and  true  reverence,  are  multiplying  through- 
out the  East,  quite  beyond  the  formal  limits 
of  Christian  society.  In  like  manner,  the 
appreciation  of  childhood  on  its  ethical  and 
intellectual  sides  is  growing  strong  and 
definite.  The  words  of  the  President  of 
the  Mohammedan  Educational  Conference, 
Nawab  Imad-ul-Mulk  Syed  Hosain  Bil- 
grami,  in  a  recent  address  before  the  Con- 
ference at  Rampur,  India,  give  a  fair  ex- 
ample of  the  seriousness  with  which,  in  the 
heart  of  the  ancient  East,  throbs  the  same 
yearning  for  the  ethical  protection  of  the 
young  that  is  one  of  the  finest  notes  of 
modern  Christianity. 


228      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

The  Nawab  says :  (the  English  is  his  own) 
"The  infant  mind,  moralists  teach  us,  is  a 
tabula  rasa,  except  for  the  few  indelible 
marks  left  on  it  by  heredity  and  other  pre- 
natal influences ;  the  rest  of  the  tablet  is  left 
to  be  written  up  by  the  child's  own  conduct 
in  life;  and  the  tablet  has  this  peculiarity 
about  it,  that  evil  deeds  cloud  and  corrode 
it,  while  good  deeds  add  to  its  brightness 
and  lustre.  The  first  righteous  act  makes 
the  next  easier;  just  as  the  first  act  of  sin 
paves  the  way  for  further  sinfulness.  Such 
is  the  law  of  moral  development;  but  in- 
tellectual and  physical  development  is  gov- 
erned by  an  analogous  law,  and  therefore 
the  early  formation  of  proper  habits  is  the 
most  important  part  of  the  functions  of  a 
teacher.  It  is  only  when  the  three  march 
together  in  their  due  balance,  that  youth 
develops  into  complete  and  proper  man- 
hood. Now  it  is  obvious  that  to  succeed  in 
such  a  comprehensive  scheme  of  education, 
we  must  take  our  youths  in  hand  in  their 
tender  years,  place  them  with  teachers  of 
undoubted  ability  and  high  moral  character, 
and  surround  them  with  influences  that 
shall  mould  their  character  in  lessons  of 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  229 

self-knowledge,  self-reverence,  and  self-con- 
trol, repress  evil  propensities  and  promote 
all  the  nobler  impulses  of  manhood." 

Even  more  typical  of  present  develop- 
ments in  the  East,  of  religious  insight  and 
experience  outside  of  Christianity,  is  the 
ferment  of  interest  concerning  Christ  and 
the  more  esoteric  teachings  of  the  New 
Testament.  The  Oriental  consciousness, 
long  indifferent  to  these  themes  because  of 
prejudice  against  the  West,  with  which  they 
were  seriously  confused,  is  now,  consciously 
and,  to  an  immensely  wider  extent,  uncon- 
sciously, engaged  in  differentiating  the  in- 
herent Orientalism  of  Christianity  from  the 
modifications  imposed  on  it  in  the  course  of 
Western  civilization.  Under  the  influence 
of  an  irresistible  temperamental  affinity,  the 
East  is  directing  its  superb  gifts  of  spiritual 
insight  toward  Christ,  whose  formidable 
influence  upon  the  world's  history  can  no 
longer  be  ignored.  It  is  too  soon  to  say 
that  the  East  is  preparing  to  render  to  Jesus 
Christ,  as  the  Son  of  God,  the  allegiance 
of  a  spiritual  faith.  But  it  is  certain  that 
Christ's  influence,  like  the  searching  rays 
of  sunrise,  is  penetrating  the  remotest  fields 


230      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

of  Eastern  thought,  and  arousing  there  in- 
quiries and  dispositions  of  mind,  the  poten- 
tial significance  of  which  cannot  be  over- 
stated. As  might  have  been  anticipated,  it 
is  the  mystical  rather  than  the  historical 
aspects  of  Christianity  that  chiefly  are  at- 
tracting attention.  The  Fourth  Gospel  (re- 
ceived to-day  with  startling  incredulity  and 
apathy  by  many  a  Christian  of  the  West  on 
whom  has  fallen  the  paralysis  of  an  over- 
confident criticism)  is  finding  to-day,  in 
Hindu  and  Mohammedan  circles  of  culture, 
students  who  approach  its  sacred  mysteries 
with  an  enthusiasm  and  reverence  worthy 
of  the  apostolic  age.  Meanwhile,  where 
as  yet  is  no  disposition  to  admit  the  Divine 
claim  of  Jesus  Christ,  there  is  in  process  a 
remarkable  assimilation  of  His  spirit,  to- 
gether with  an  appreciation  of  the  hopes 
and  ideals  of  the  Christian  life.  There  are 
not  wanting  suggestions  of  an  Oriental 
Christianity  which,  moving  along  other 
lines  of  experience,  and  accenting  the  mys- 
tical rather  than  the  institutional  elements 
of  Christian  revelation,  may  ultimately  ad- 
vance beyond  the  West  in  spiritual  inter- 
pretation of  the  doctrine  of  Christ.     The 


RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT  AND  EXPERIENCE  231 

tasks  of  God  are  too  great  for  haste.  Slowly 
but  surely  He  shall  accomplish  this  vast 
work ;  the  liberation  of  the  latent  powers  of 
insight  and  worship  in  the  glowing  soul  of 
the  East  —  the  organization  and  consecra- 
tion of  those  powers  in  the  service  of  the 
Universal  Saviour. 

From  the  Prayer-book  of  Babu  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen,  a  Hindu  to  whom,  in  part,  the 
vision  of  Christ  came,  I  take  this  prayer, 
written  by  his  own  hand,  as  a  symbol  of 
religious  insight  and  experience  outside  of 
Christianity,  which  seems  to  me  prophetic 
of  greater  spiritual  unfoldings  yet  to  pro- 
ceed from  the  heart  of  India. 

It  is  called  a  "Congregational  Prayer," 
for  the  Brahmo  Somaj :  — 

"We  thank  Thee,  O  Beneficent  God,  that  Thou  hast 
gathered  us  again  in  this  sacred  place  of  worship  to  glo- 
rify and  adore  Thee.  The  blessed  hour  to  which  we 
were  earnestly  looking  forward  amidst  the  anxieties  and 
troubles  of  the  week  has  now  arrived.  Permit  us  to 
approach  Thee,  and  prepare  our  hearts  that  we  may  feel 
Thy  sacred  presence.  O  Thou,  Light  and  Love,  Thou 
art  everywhere ;  Thou  art  before  our  eyes  in  all  the 
objects  we  behold;  Thou  dwellest  in  the  inmost  recesses 
of  the  heart.  Everywhere  is  Thy  benignant  Face,  and 
Thy  loving  arms  are  around  us  all.     Help  us  so  to  con- 


232      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

centrate  our  souls  in  Thy  all-pervading  Spirit,  so  to  feel 
Thy  holiness  and  purity  that  each  corrupt  desire,  each 
worldly  craving  may  perish,  and  all  the  sentiments  and 
feelings  of  the  soul  may  be  brought  to  Thy  feet.  May  not 
the  pleasures  which  we  now  enjoy  in  Thy  company  be 
transitory;  may  they  sweeten  our  whole  lives  and  con- 
tinue to  endear  Thee  to  us  everlastingly.  Vouchsafe  to 
keep  us  always  under  the  shadow  of  Thy  protection, 
and  guide  our  steps  in  the  thorny  paths  of  the  world. 
Amidst  the  woes  and  sufferings  of  the  world  be  Thou 
our  joy ;  amidst  its  darkness  be  Thou  our  Light ;  amidst 
its  temptations  and  persecutions  be  Thou  our  Shield  and 
Armor.  Promote  amongst  us  good- will  and  affection, 
sanctify  our  dealings  with  each  other,  and  bind  us  into 
a  holy  brotherhood.  May  we  aid  each  other  in  doing 
and  loving  that  which  is  good  in  Thy  sight.  Teach  us, 
O  Lord,  to  spend  all  our  days  in  Thy  service,  and  aspire 
to  be  partakers  of  the  rich  bounties  and  lasting  joys  of 
the  next  world.  Be  Thou  with  us  always,  Thou  Affec- 
tionate Father,  and  enable  us  to  grow  steadily  in  Thy 
love.  Bring  all  men  under  the  protection  of  the  true 
faith.  May  Thy  dear  Name  be  chanted  by  every  lip, 
and  mayest  Thou  find  a  temple  in  every  breast.  And 
unto  Thee  we  ascribe  everlasting  glory  and  praise."  * 

1  The  Ministers'  Prayers,  3d  Edition,  Calcutta,  Brahmo  Tract 
Society,  1900. 


LECTURE   VI 
CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD 

In  this  Lecture  I  wish  to  show  the  conclu- 
sions toward  which  we  are  led  by  the  argu- 
ment in  the  foregoing  pages.  In  order  to  do 
this  it  becomes  necessary  to  remind  ourselves 
of  certain  positions  taken  at  the  outset.  It 
will  be  remembered  that  the  general  theme 
of  these  Lectures  is  "The  Attitude  of  Jesus 
Christ  toward  Foreign  Races  and  Reli- 
gions." The  problem  with  which  we  have 
attempted  to  deal  is  a  problem  of  mental 
attitude :  How  shall  we  order  the  mind, 
adjust  the  judgment,  train  the  affections,  and 
determine  effort  with  reference  to  races  and 
religions  not  our  own  ? 

The  first  Lecture  contained  a  review,  in 
outline,  of  some  general  positions  that  have 
been  taken  in  the  matter  of  religious  atti- 
tude. We  considered  the  policy  that  was 
enjoined  on  Israel  when  it  became  a  nation. 
It  was  a  policy  of  the  sword ;  of  destruction 
of  opposing  interests;  of  abhorrence  of  the 


234       CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

gods  of  the  nations  and  contempt  for 
idolatry.  The  fruit  of  that  policy  was  Se- 
mitic monotheism,  the  worship  of  one  Holy 
God,  springing  from  the  dry  ground  into 
the  fruitful  tree  of  salvation.  With  its 
immediate  severity  and  its  strenuous  segrega- 
tion, this  policy,  imposed  by  Divine  com- 
mand, was,  in  fact,  a  policy  of  inclusion 
rather  than  exclusion.  In  the  comprehen- 
sive view  of  ultimate  purpose  and  result, 
it  appears  that  the  segregation  of  Israel  was 
in  order  to  larger  service  for  the  world. 
Israel  was  trained  aloof  from  the  world  that 
the  seed  of  Abraham  might  draw  the  world 
from  idols  to  the  living  God.  This  policy 
of  segregation  was  abrogated  by  the  example 
and  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  pro- 
nounced a  gospel  of  love,  and  directed  His 
disciples  to  cultivate  world-wide  relation- 
ships, thereby  to  gather  from  all  races  the 
membership  of  a  universal  society.  Never- 
theless, are  crudescence  of  the  spirit  of  Jew- 
ish exclusiveness  and  hate  occurred  in  the 
guise  of  Christianity,  and,  from  time  to 
time,  has  affected  the  course  of  Christian 
ecclesiastical  history.  The  spirit  and  tem- 
per of  Christ  have  been  misapprehended  by 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  235 

multitudes  of  His  followers.  The  Crusades, 
the  Inquisition,  later  sectarian  acts  of  repres- 
sion, tyrannies  of  power  that  have  marred 
the  course  of  the  Church  up  to  the  present 
time,  bear  witness  to  widespread  misappre- 
hension of  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  and  persistent 
reaction  toward  Semitic  ideals. 

The  advancement  of  science  and  the 
growth  of  tolerance  have  produced  modern 
attitudes  toward  foreign  races  and  faiths 
quite  in  contrast  with  those  developed  by 
primitive  ignorance  and  mediaeval  bigotry. 
The  amiable  curiosity  of  the  holiday-maker 
leads  him  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  whence 
he  returns  amused,  instructed,  refreshed,  yet 
without  concern  for  those  by  whose  strange 
manners  and  customs  he  has  been  diverted. 
If  he  remembers  them,  it  is  as  the  recollec- 
tion of  matters  between  which  and  his  own 
life  there  is  nothing  in  common.  The 
scientific  student  of  religious  and  social 
phenomena  welcomes  every  opportunity  to 
observe  and  classify  the  facts  that  crowd 
the  field  of  Oriental  religion,  but  the  quality 
of  his  interest  in  those  facts  is  academic 
rather  than  spiritual.  The  ardor  of  re- 
search is  not  incompatible  with  disdain  or 


236      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

with  passionless  verification  of  data.  These 
mental  attitudes,  though  far  less  objection- 
able than  those  of  a  former  age,  in  that  they 
make  no  attempt  to  interfere  with  the  liber- 
ties of  others,  are,  in  fact,  relatively  unsatis- 
factory. They  represent  merely  a  transition 
from  the  active  form  of  intolerance,  which  is 
persecution,  to  the  passive  form,  which  con- 
sists in  the  absence  of  love,  and  of  solicitude 
born  of  love.  The  self-centred  amusement 
of  the  mere  holiday-maker,  or  the  cultured 
disdain  of  the  mere  man  of  science,  lack  the 
unifying  elements  of  Christian  feeling.  They 
pass  by  on  the  other  side;  the  vital  aspira- 
tions and  spiritual  sufferings  of  Eastern 
races  in  quest  of  the  soul's  satisfaction  are 
unheeded,  if  not  uncomprehended. 

From  these  passive  forms  of  intolerance 
we  have  made  it  our  business  in  these  Lec- 
tures to  turn  away.  We  have  attempted  to 
estimate  and  understand  the  mental  attitude 
of  Jesus  Christ  toward  races  and  religions 
with  which,  regarding  Him  in  the  light  of 
His  Jewish  ancestry,  He  could  not  be  ex- 
pected, antecedently,  to  be  in  sympathy. 
We  saw  the  complete  exemption  of  His 
mind  from  limitations  that  have  bound  His 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  237 

followers,  as  well  as  from  those  that  affect 
His  contemporaries.  His  world-sympathy 
was  like  an  atmosphere  through  which  He 
saw  all  people  and  all  questions,  in  which 
He  lived  and  moved  and  had  His  being. 
His  appropriation  of  Isaiah's  splendid  pro- 
phecy of  the  tolerance  of  the  Messianic 
Servant  is  sweetly  characteristic. 

"  Behold,  My  Servant  whom  I  have  chosen; 
My  Beloved  in  whom  My  soul  is  well  pleased : 
I  will  put  My  Spirit  upon  Him, 
And  He  shall  declare  judgment  to  the  Gentiles. 
A  bruised  reed  shall  He  not  break, 
And  smoking  flax  shall  He  not  quench, 
And  in  His  Name  shall  the  Gentiles  hope." * 

He  loved  the  world;  lived  for  it;  died  for  it. 
His  attitude  was  one  of  large  friendliness 
toward  the  world.  He  conceived  of  His 
own  influence  as  capable  of  diffusion  through- 
out the  consciousness  of  every  species,  grade, 
and  class  of  humanity.  He  offered  Himself 
as  a  gift  of  light  to  the  world,  and  antici- 
pated His  own  death  as  an  opportunity  to 
draw  the  whole  world  unto  Himself. 
As  we  fastened  our  minds  upon  this  unique 

1  Cf.  Matt.  xii.  18-21. 


238      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

mental  attitude,  occurring  in  unquestionable 
historical  reality,  yet  strikingly  out  of  rela- 
tion to  anything  that  went  before  it  or  that 
surrounded  it,  we  found  ourselves  sharing 
an  impulse  that  has  never  ceased  to  re- 
appear in  every  age  since  His  own.  It  is 
the  impulse  to  answer  the  question  pro- 
posed by  Himself:  "Who  do  men  say  that 
the  Son  of  Man  is  ?  "  *  We  observed  the 
involuntary  belief,  recurring  in  each  age, 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  more  than  the  incidental 
appearance  of  a  human  life  of  extraordinary 
beauty  and  efficiency.  Amid  many  different 
interpretations  of  the  Person  of  Christ  there 
is  found  one  common  term.  All  who  study 
Him  seem  to  agree  that,  in  some  unique 
way,  there  lies  behind  and  within  the  brief 
chronicle  of  that  "perfect  Life  of  Love,"  a 
permanent  disclosure  of  facts  that  are  uni- 
versal, of  qualities  that  are  infinite.  His 
local  appearance  upon  earth  has  seemed 
to  call  for  interpretation  in  terms  of  the 
universal,  as  a  revelation  given  under  the 
form  of  an  historic  event.  His  mental  atti- 
tude toward  humanity  has  appeared  to  stand 
for  more  than  the  disposition  of  liberality, 

1  Matt.  xvi.  13. 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  239 

shared  by  many  of  the  greater  minds;  it 
has  seemed  an  embodiment  of  principles 
involving  the  actual  attitude  of  God  toward 
the  world,  the  intrinsic  worth  of  man  con- 
sidered apart  from  accidents  of  environment, 
the  fundamental  unity  of  the  human  race. 
In  a  word,  Jesus  Christ  has  seemed  to  be 
the  Incarnation  of  God. 

In  following  this  train  of  thought  through 
the  foregoing  Lectures,  I  have  not  sought 
to  obtrude  upon  your  notice  my  own 
personal  faith  concerning  the  divinity  of 
Christ,  in  His  inward  and  esoteric  corre- 
spondence with  the  essence  of  the  In- 
finite. Yet  I  have  not  refrained,  nor 
can  I  now  refrain,  from  confessing  with 
deep  humility  how  real  is  that  belief  in 
my  religious  experience.  Constantly  it  is 
taking  on  in  my  thought  a  more  precious 
and  more  deep  reality;  constantly  it  re- 
veals a  deepening  significance  in  connec- 
tion with  Christ's  attitude  toward  foreign 
races  and  religions.  Evidently  the  signi- 
ficance and  the  authority  of  that  attitude 
are  determined  by  the  meaning  that  the 
Person  of  Christ  has  for  us  in  our  religious 
thinking.     If  He  be,  for  us,  only  a  man, 


240      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

then  however  admirable  and  chivalrous  His 
attitude  toward  the  world,  the  moral  sug- 
gestion contained  in  that  attitude  is  of  no 
greater  authority  than  that  which,  ordinarily, 
obtains  in  connection  with  the  spirit  and 
acts  of  heroic  persons.  But  if  He  appears 
to  us  to  be  far  more  than  a  mere  human 
incident  of  extraordinary  beauty,  even  "the 
Image  of  the  invisible  God"  (in  whatever 
metaphysical  sense  we  may  individually  de- 
fine that  splendid  and  striking  term) ;  if  He 
seems  to  be  the  one  unique,  unhindered 
expression  of  the  life  and  fullness  of  the 
Godhead  —  then  all  is  changed.  Assum- 
ing Christ  to  reveal  the  Father,  in  this  trans- 
cendent mode,  the  implications  contained 
in  His  attitude  toward  humanity  are  indeed 
sublime,  for  hereby  we  learn  the  actual 
attitude  of  God  toward  the  world. 

The  thinking  of  Christ  appears  to  be  con- 
trolled by  three  great  generalizations,  on 
the  basis  of  which  He  lives  and  dies :  The 
Father's  impartial  interest  in  humanity;  the 
unqualified  value  of  human  life;  the  essen- 
tial unity  of  the  human  race.  Into  the  last 
of  these  three  great  generalizations  we  have 
been  looking  in  the  third,  fourth,  and  fifth 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  241 

Lectures  of  this  course.  We  have  been  try- 
ing to  determine  grounds  on  which  to  regard 
(not  in  the  momentary  rush  of  impulse,  but 
in  the  stability  of  calmly  reasoned  convic- 
tion) the  many  branches  of  the  whole  hu- 
man family  as  one  in  essence ;  one  in  God's 
thought  of  them;  one  in  their  potential 
representation  in  the  Incarnation  of  the 
Son  of  God.  We  have  been  trying  to  in- 
terpret aright  the  temperamental  variations 
between  Eastern  and  Western  races;  to 
view  them,  not  as  nullifying  the  unity  of 
the  race,  but  of  establishing  it  on  deeper 
foundations,  because  of  the  conformity  of 
these  racial  variations  to  the  general  law  of 
temperamental  variation  that  obtained  in 
the  smaller  unities  of  the  single  nation,  the 
single  family,  even  the  single  individual. 
We  have  been  trying,  especially  in  the  Lec- 
ture immediately  preceding,  to  understand 
and  to  give  full  value  to,  the  religious  signi- 
ficance of  what  we  find  in  races  and  faiths 
different  from  our  own.  We  have  sought 
to  treat  with  due  regard  religious  insight 
and  experience  outside  of  Christianity.  It 
was  pointed  out  that  Asia  is  the  immemo- 
rial spring  of  the  world's  dominant  religious 


242      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

consciousness.  Asia  is  the  alma  mater  of 
every  great  religion :  Hinduism,  Buddhism, 
Zoroastrianism  and  its  far  spreading  cognate, 
Mithraism,  Confucianism,  Shinto,  Judaism, 
Mohammedanism,  Christianity.  From  that 
immemorial  spring  flowed  two  rivers  of 
religious  insight  and  experience.  The  one 
set  its  course  westward.  Climatic  and  psy- 
chic conditions  determined  that  course.  It 
bore  in  its  current  the  earliest,  strongest, 
most  virile  tendency  of  the  Asiatic  con- 
sciousness, the  tendency  toward  philosophi- 
cal and  practical  monotheism,  with  strong 
accent  on  the  external  and  institutional 
aspects  of  religion,  which  has  shaped  the  life 
of  the  West.  The  other  river  of  religious 
insight  and  experience  moved  eastward. 
Its  course  and  volume  were  determined, 
likewise,  by  climate  and  racial  temperament. 
It  bore  in  its  flow  the  secondary,  the  more 
supple,  the  weaker  and  more  enervating 
tendencies  of  Orientalism.  These  have  gov- 
erned, thus  far,  the  life  of  the  East.  They 
are,  in  substance,  tendencies  toward  philo- 
sophical pantheism  and  practical  polythe- 
ism, with  strong  accent  on  introspective  and 
speculative  propositions. 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  243 

By  means  of  this  recapitulation,  we  bring 
before  us  the  existing  religious  situation,  as 
between  East  and  West ;  we  exhibit,  in  prin- 
ciple, the  essential  divergence  between  the 
Occidental  consciousness  and  the  Oriental 
consciousness.  The  way  is  thus  prepared 
for  a  practical  question :  What  can  be  done, 
what  ought  to  be  done,  by  the  West,  to  mod- 
ify the  religious  situation  in  the  East  and  to 
promote  a  more  advanced  and  intelligent  in- 
terchange of  religious  thinking  throughout 
the  world?  This  question  is  contained  by 
implication  in  my  present  theme :  "  Chris- 
tian Missions  and  the  Modern  World." 

It  is  proper  to  consider  at  the  outset  a 
suggestion  urged  by  those  who  are  dis- 
affected toward  Christian  missions.  The 
policy  of  non-action  is  not  without  strong 
advocates.  It  is  proposed  that  nothing 
further  be  done  to  promote  the  Christian- 
ization  of  the  world,  that  Judah  no  longer 
vex  Ephraim.  It  is  advised  that  the  zealous 
West  let  the  East  alone,  joined  comfortably 
to  its  idols  and  its  philosophies;  that  the 
West  withdraw,  and  content  itself  with  what, 
judging  from  appearances,  is  no  inconsider- 
able task, — keeping  alive  its  own  altar  fires 


244      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

of  Christianity.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that 
this  advice  is  often  given  in  good  faith,  in 
the  supposed  interest  of  the  brotherhood  of 
nations  and  the  common  peace  and  better- 
ment of  the  world.  And  the  value  of 
the  advice  is  greatly  affected  by  its  com- 
plete impracticability.  Judah  does  not  vex 
Ephraim  religiously  merely  because  he  de- 
sires to  do  so,  but  because  under  a  profound 
law  of  inheritance  he  cannot  refrain  from 
doing  so.  One  can  no  more  prevent  Chris- 
tian influences  and  Christian  efforts  from 
flying  eastward,  than  one  can  keep  carrier 
pigeons  from  their  homing.  Christianity 
came  out  of  the  East,  and  to  the  East  it  must 
return.  The  matter  is  not  in  our  hands. 
Psychology  and  the  Spirit  of  God,  which  is 
as  the  wind  that  bloweth  where  it  listeth, 
determine  it.  Furthermore,  one  cannot 
divide  East  from  West  in  the  matter  of  re- 
ligious interaction  any  more  than  in  the 
matter  of  commercial  interaction.  The 
trade  routes  from  West  to  East  were  open 
fifteen  centuries  before  Christ,  we  know; 
they  may  have  been  open  thirty  centuries 
before  Christ;  they  will  remain  open  until 
there  shall  be  no  more  sea.     Neither  can  the 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  245 

highways  of  the  common  spiritual  con- 
sciousness of  mankind  be  blocked,  nor 
thought  be  hemmed  in  behind  mountain 
ranges  and  desert.  God  is  one;  the  race 
is  one;  the  interactions  of  race  conscious- 
ness are  inevitable  effects  of  that  oneness. 
"What  therefore  God  hath  joined  together, 
let  not  man  put  asunder." 

Moreover,  as  I  pointed  out  in  the  preced- 
ing Lecture,  the  East  will  have  it  so.  Her 
acute  discernment  of  religious  values  marks 
Christianity  as  her  own.  The  mother  knows 
her  offspring.  And  this,  notwithstanding 
deep-seated  Oriental  opposition  to  institu- 
tions and  theologies  of  Western  churches. 
The  East  denounces  Western  Christendom, 
yet  in  spirit  approaches  nearer  and  nearer 
to  the  worship  of  Christ.  The  East  has 
persecuted  and  put  to  death  missionary 
representatives  of  Western  churches,  yet,  to 
an  extraordinary  extent,  assimilates  Christian 
conceptions  in  its  higher  thinking.  This 
is  not  a  senseless  contradiction.  The  quar- 
rel is  not  between  the  East  and  Christ,  but 
between  the  East  and  Christ's  successors. 
Not  hatred  of  Christ,  but  scorn  and  distrust 
of  the  West,  explains  the  opposition  of  the 


246      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

Orient  to  Occidental  missions.  I  think  it 
safe  to  say  that  the  eyes  that  to-day  are 
searching  most  eagerly  the  face  of  Christ, 
the  minds  that  are  most  anxiously  weighing 
Christianity  in  the  balance  of  judgment, 
are  eyes  and  minds  of  Orientals,  turning 
from  long  aberrations  of  pantheism  and 
pessimism  to  consider  the  Lamb  of  God 
"which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world." 
To  speak  of  withdrawing  Christianity  out 
of  the  Oriental  consciousness  would  now  be 
to  speak  of  withdrawing  light  out  of  sun- 
shine, sound  out  of  music.  One  may  not 
rashly  predict  lines  of  development  and 
points  of  accentuation  that  will  distinguish 
the  future  of  Christianity  in  the  East,  but 
it  is  certain  that  the  seed  of  the  Christian 
gospel  is  rooted  in  the  Oriental  conscious- 
ness, and  every  Western  analogy  suggests 
extensive  and  characteristic  development, 
to  occur  in  due  course;  first  the  blade,  then 
the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear. 

These  considerations  increase  the  prac- 
tical interest  and  importance  of  the  theme 
now  before  us:  "  The  Place  of  Christian 
Missions  in  the  Modern  World."  Every  at- 
tempt to  identify  and  delimit  the  sphere  of 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  247 

missionary  effort  in  the  present  stage  of  the 
world's  development  should  be  made  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Confucian  maxim:  "To  under- 
stand the  present  we  must  study  the  past." 
It  is  desirable  to  consider  the  evolutionary 
changes  that  have  taken  place  in  the  motive 
of  Christian  missions.  For  better  or  for 
worse,  new  elements  have  entered  the  mo- 
tive; complicating,  and,  at  times,  obscuring 
its  original  simplicity.  Perhaps  no  moment 
in  the  life  of  Christ  is  more  splendid  in  its 
statesmanlike  sweep  of  intention  or  more 
affecting  in  its  suggestion  of  deep  yet  well- 
controlled  emotion,  than  the  moment  in 
which  He  unfolds  before  the  apostles  His 
purpose  to  Christianize  the  world.  Already 
He  had  given  evidence  of  the  sincerity  and 
depth  of  His  love  for  the  world ;  sealing  the 
testimony  with  His  blood.  He  chooses  now 
a  felicitous  place  and  moment  wherein  to 
convey  to  His  future  representatives  an 
adequate  sense  of  their  vocation.  He  leads 
them  out  of  the  precincts  of  the  city,  where 
one's  thoughts  are  likely  to  be  hemmed  in 
by  the  nearness  and  height  of  stone  walls. 
He  advances  into  the  open,  to  Galilee, 
where  the  great  sky  line  of  hills  and  the  arch 


248      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

of  the  blue  and  the  sailing  of  clouds  like 
ships  in  a  sea  make  one  think  of  spaces  and 
of  people  beyond  the  range  of  the  local. 
Standing  amidst  these  suggestions  of  a 
broader  world,  He  delivers  to  the  apostles 
a  charge,  which,  by  its  catholicity  and  cos- 
mopolitanism, introduced  a  new  element 
into  the  religious  thinking  of  man.  "Go 
ye  therefore,  and  make  disciples  of  all  the 
nations,  baptizing  them  into  the  name  of 
the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost :  teaching  them  to  observe  all  things 
whatsoever  I  commanded  you:  and  lo,  I 
am  with  you  all  the  days,  even  unto  the 
consummation  of  the  age."1  The  mental 
attitude  of  Christ  in  the  delivery  of  this 
charge  is  apparent.  In  these  words  He 
concentrates  and  declares  the  essence  of 
His  soul-purpose.  Behind  and  around 
them  extend  the  far-reaching  lines  of  His 
ministry  and  the  prophetic  intimations  of 
world-redemption  that  preceded  His  min- 
istry. Beneath  these  words,  as  invincible 
presuppositions,  lie  the  fundamental  ex- 
periences and  emotions  of  the  heart  of 
Christ.     One  can  feel  in  them,  as  one  feels 

1  Cf.  Matt,  xxviii.  19,  20. 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  249 

the  pulse  beating  within  the  living  organism, 
Christ's  most  treasured  and  most  charac- 
teristic convictions:  His  sense  of  oneness 
with  the  whole  world;  the  nobleness  of  His 
great  love  for  the  whole  world,  inclining 
Him  toward  the  formidable  mystery  and 
anguish  of  sacrifice;  His  generous  appre- 
ciation of  possibilities  latent  in  all  nations, 
awaiting  the  day  of  knowledge  and  libera- 
tion to  give  forth  their  response  to  Him 
as  World-Saver.  Christ's  sense  of  oneness 
with  the  world  is  one  of  His  most  amazing 
and  (if  one  may  use  the  term)  fascinating 
characteristics.  As  for  local  domicile,  He 
has  none.  But  this  is  incidental.  He  is  at 
home  in  the  world.  Man  is  his  brother. 
One  may  think  of  Christ  as  rejoicing  in 
His  humanity,  with  wide,  unfettered  happi- 
ness. The  sting  produced  by  opposition 
and  indignity  coming  from  a  faction  in 
Israel,  He  assuaged  by  immersing  His  spirit 
in  great  purposes  of  world-wide  affection. 
For  the  joy  that  was  set  before  Him,  He 
endured  the  cross,  despising  the  shame. 
Nor  did  He  doubt  the  possibility  of  response 
to  His  love  and  appreciation  of  His  purpose, 
ultimately  to  emerge  from  all  parts  of  the 


250      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

world,  fulfilling  His  hopes,  satisfying  the 
travail  of  His  soul.  Christ  treated  the  reli- 
gious nature  of  the  human  race  as  a  basis 
for  Divine  operations,  to  be  consummated 
in  the  Christianizing  of  remote  peoples. 
"Many,"  He  declared,  "shall  come  from 
the  East  and  the  West,  and  shall  sit  down 
with  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven."  *  He  recognized  re- 
ligious insight  and  experience  outside  of 
Judaism,  and  appealed  to  it  as  a  basis  for 
yet  higher  and  more  adequate  modes  of 
communion  with  God.  Such,  I  believe, 
was  the  actual  mental  attitude  of  Christ  in 
the  delivery  to  the  apostles  of  the  charge  to 
conduct  throughout  the  world  the  missions 
of  Christianity.  I  have  not  read  into  that 
mental  attitude  elements  that  are  not  there 
in  fact.  The  danger  is  not  that  one  shall 
overstate  the  catholicity  of  Jesus  Christ, 
but  rather  that  one  shall  be  incapable  of 
shaking  off  the  fictions  of  ecclesiasticism 
sufficiently  to  perceive,  even  approximately, 
the  immense  breadth  of  the  Saviour's  mind. 
His  mental  attitude  was  fairly  appreciated 
and  shared  by  His   immediate  successors. 

1  Matt.  viii.  11. 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  251 

When  we  consider  their  provincial  training, 
the  hereditary  hindrances  that  clung  to 
them,  their  relative  ignorance  of  the  world, 
their  inability  to  obtain  that  inestimable 
humanism  which  is  fostered  by  extensive 
travel  and  familiar  intercourse  with  foreign 
civilizations,  the  cosmopolitanism  of  the 
apostles  is  astonishing.  We  cannot  account 
for  it  on  strictly  naturalistic  grounds.  The 
day  of  Pentecost,  the  effusion  of  the  Spirit, 
alone  supplies  a  clue  to  the  world-statesman- 
ship of  that  group  of  untraveled  men.  That 
Peter  the  Apostle  hesitated  to  visit  Corne- 
lius the  Centurion  until  reinforced  by  spe- 
cific instructions,  is  an  incident  of  exquisite 
naturalness.  In  this  he  was  true  to  every 
instinct  of  ecclesiasticism.  The  occurrence 1 
exhibits,  by  the  force  of  contrast,  the  superb 
deliverance  from  religious  narrowness  ac- 
complished in  the  apostolic  circle,  as  the 
inner  eye,  purged  by  Divine  intervention, 
was  adjusted  to  the  radiant  catholicity  of 
their  Lord  and  Master.  How  magnificent 
is  the  spectacle  of  apostolic  Dispersion. 
The  gates  of  the  world  opened;  and  they 
issued,  eastward  and  westward,  as  strong 

1  Cf.  Acts  x. 


252      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

men  to  run  a  race;  casting  aside  every 
weight  of  racial  prejudice,  and  looking  with 
glad  eyes  to  their  Forerunner  in  the  world- 
course,  the  Author  and  Finisher  of  their 
faith.  Two  moments  in  the  life  of  St. 
Paul  are  indescribably  refreshing,  as  ex- 
uberant outbursts  of  humanism,  attaining, 
at  a  bound,  the  measure  of  the  stature  of 
Christ.  One  is  at  Antioch  of  Pisidia 
when  jealous  sectaries,  contradicting  and 
blaspheming,  attempt  to  stand  between 
the  truth  and  an  uncircumcised  world. 
Like  the  sound  of  a  torrent  breaking  with 
joy  through  puny  barriers,  in  its  glad  rush 
from  the  hills,  is  the  answer  of  him  who  had 
found  in  Christ  his  own  soul-liberty:  "It 
was  necessary  that  the  word  of  God  should 
first  be  spoken  to  you.  Seeing  ye  thrust 
it  from  you,  and  judge  yourselves  unworthy 
of  eternal  life,  lo,  we  turn  to  the  Gentiles. 
For  so  hath  the  Lord  commanded  us,  say- 
ing, I  have  set  thee  for  a  light  of  the  Gentiles, 
That  thou  shouldest  be  for  salvation  unto 
the  uttermost  part  of  the  earth."  *  The  other 
moment  is  the  famous  one  in  Greece, 
where,  after  the  manner  of  an  epic,  the  man 

1  Acts  xiii.  46,  47. 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  253 

who  had  learned  cosmopolitanism  through 
Christ's  liberating  touch  upon  his  own  life, 
speaks,  in  words  robust  with  hope,  of  the 
Divine  world-purpose.  "The  God  that 
made  the  world  and  all  things  therein,  He, 
being  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  dwelleth 
not  in  temples  made  with  hands ;  neither  is 
He  served  by  men's  hands,  as  though  He 
needed  anything,  seeing  He  Himself  giveth 
to  all  life,  and  breath,  and  all  things ;  and  He 
made  of  one  every  nation  of  men  for  to  dwell 
on  all  the  face  of  the  earth,  having  determined 
their  appointed  seasons,  and  the  bounds  of 
their  habitation ;  that  they  should  seek  God, 
if  haply  they  might  feel  after  Him,  and  find 
Him,  though  He  is  not  far  from  each  one  of 
us :  for  in  Him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have 
our  being;  as  certain  even  of  your  own  poets 
have  said,  For  we  are  also  His  offspring."  * 
Such  was  the  original  conception  that 
prevailed  in  the  mind  of  the  Church,  touch- 
ing the  Christianizing  of  the  world.  It  was 
a  conception  Homeric  in  its  simplicity, 
divine  in  its  humanism.  It  was  as  free  and 
as  buoyant  as  the  wind.  It  was  as  broad 
in  its  luminous  expansiveness  as  the  light- 

1  Acts  xvii.  24-31. 


254      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

ning  of  which  Christ  speaks,  "coming  forth 
from  the  east,  and  is  seen  even  unto  the 
west."  For  a  time  the  impulse  of  the  origi- 
nal conception  remained,  then  slowly  died 
away.  Two  influences  operated  against  the 
survival  of  the  original  conception:  one, 
the  gathering  interests  of  ecclesiasticism;  the 
other,  the  rise  of  Islam.  As  for  the  former, 
without  entering  into  the  merits  of  the  ques- 
tion, one  may  say  that  the  gathering  interests 
of  ecclesiasticism  furnished  a  diversion,  pro- 
found and  active,  from  the  large  purpose 
of  the  Lord  and  His  first  successors.  The 
Church  had  many  new  questions  to  con- 
sider and  new  institutions  to  safeguard  and 
administer.  The  accent  shifted  to  matters 
incredibly  remote  from  those  that  occupied 
the  attention  of  Christ  and,  apparently,  were 
by  Him  estimated  as  of  the  greatest  impor- 
tance. I  do  not  presume  to  say  that  this 
altered  situation  could  have  been  avoided, 
nor  that  it  was  not  necessary,  in  the  evolu- 
tionary struggle  of  a  religion  destined  to 
ultimate  universality.  That  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness could  not  have  attained  intellectual 
self-realization  save  through  controversial 
periods,  and  that  the  Christian  conscience 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  255 

could  not  have  been  educated  to  ethical 
maturity  without  the  pressure  of  institu- 
tional authority,  are  propositions  incapable 
indeed  of  proof,  yet  not  open  to  rational 
denial.  In  any  case  the  growth  of  ecclesiasti- 
cism  profoundly  obscured  the  simple  inten- 
tion of  Christ  and  diverted  the  interest  of  the 
Church  from  it;  and  the  respective  and  in- 
harmonious conceptions  of  catholicity  enter- 
tained in  the  Latin  and  Greek  communions 
brought  about  a  situation  for  which  Christ 
made  no  obvious  provision,  and  the  continu- 
ance of  which  to  the  present  day  has  indefi- 
nitely obstructed  ends  that  He  had  in  view. 
The  rise  of  Islam  was  a  second,  and 
melancholy,  diversion  from  the  irenic  pur- 
pose of  Christ  toward  nations  remote  from 
the  Palestinian  centre.  Islam,  as  I  have 
pointed  out  in  a  former  Lecture,  inter- 
posed a  practical  barrier  between  East  and 
West;  arresting  the  ordinary  course  of 
traffic  and  discouraging  such  sporadic  mis- 
sionary effort  as  may  have  survived  the  rise 
of  churchmanship.  It  is  necessary  to  take 
account  of  Islam,  not  only  as  a  barrier  to 
Christian  effort  for  the  world,  but  as  an  irri- 
tant of  Christian  civilized  sentiment  against 


256      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

the  Oriental  world.  One  can  scarcely  over- 
state the  acute  offensiveness  of  Islam  to 
the  Christian  sense  of  Europe,  both  ecclesi- 
astical and  monastic.  It  has  more  offen- 
siveness than  the  Orientalism  of  the  Farther 
East,  because  having  the  aspect  of  a  de- 
generate offspring  of  Judaism.  The  Chris- 
tian scorn  of  Moslems  constituted  one  of  the 
most  lamentable  aberrations  of  the  Church 
from  the  temper  of  Jesus  Christ.  Nor  is 
there  to  be  found,  readily,  a  more  horrible 
contrast  within  the  field  of  religious  history 
than  the  passion  of  the  Crusades  set  off 
against  the  attitude  of  the  Saviour  toward 
foreign  races  and  religions.  I  do  not  forget 
Sir  John  Seeley's  eloquent  apology  for  the 
Crusaders.  "It  was,"  he  says,  "the  want 
of  enlightenment,  not  the  want  of  Christian 
humanity,  that  made  it  possible  for  men 
to  commit  these  mistakes.  Those  Syrian 
battlefields  where  so  many  Crusaders  com- 
mitted their  pure  souls  unto  their  Captain, 
Christ;  the  image  of  Christ's  death  turned 
into  an  ensign  of  battle;  the  chalice  of  the 
Last  Supper  giving  its  name  to  an  army  — 
these  things  may  shock,  more  or  less,  our 
good  sense,  but  they  do  not  shock,  they 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  257 

rather  refresh  and  delight,  our  humanity. 
These  warriors  wanted  Christ's  wisdom, 
but  they  had  His  spirit,  His  divine  anger, 
His  zeal  for  the  franchises  of  the  soul.  The 
ostensible  object  of  such  horrors  was  Chris- 
tian, and  the  indignation  which  professedly 
prompts  them  is  also  Christian;  and  the 
assumption  they  involve,  that  agonies  of 
pain,  and  bloodshed  in  rivers,  are  less  evils 
than  the  soul  spotted  and  bewildered  with 
sin,  is  most  Christian."  *  This  is  splendidly 
said,  and  beyond  doubt  the  words  of  the 
Regius  Professor  refer  justly  to  the  divine 
anger  of  the  Son  of  God  and  His  zeal  for  the 
franchises  of  the  soul.  But  could  we  dis- 
solve the  atmosphere  of  romance  infolding 
the  Crusades,  and  measure  in  the  plain  light 
of  fact  the  passions  of  hatred,  prejudice,  and 
adventure  that  fanned  the  zeal  of  the  Cru- 
saders, it  is  possible  that  we  might  hesitate 
to  invoke  the  sanction  of  Christ's  example  in 
support  of  those  passions.  "Vengeance  is 
mine;  I  will  repay,"  is  a  word  that  sug- 
gests caution  in  an  attempt  to  identify  the 
religious  frenzy  of  an  age  of  ignorance  with 
the  holy  wrath  of  God's  Anointed. 

1  Cf.  Ecce  Homo,  p.  97,  ed.  Macmillan,  1904. 


258      CHRIST   AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

Yet,  for  the  manifestation  by  the  West 
of  any  other  spirit  toward  the  East 
than  that  which  found  expression  in  the 
Crusades,  one  must  wait  until  the  power 
of  Islam  was  relatively  broken  and  the 
blockade  of  the  East  lifted.  With  the  re- 
vival of  letters  the  East  came  once  more 
upon  the  horizon  of  Europe,  evoking  the 
maritime  spirit  and  its  close  ally,  the  im- 
perializing  spirit.  The  Portuguese  and 
Spanish  Jesuit  missions  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, imperialistic  in  character,  shrinking 
not  from  the  use  of  torture  as  a  stimulant  of 
faith,  are  a  mysterious  and  striking  instance 
in  the  history  of  religious  propagandism. 
Identified  with  them  were  some  heroic  and 
saintly  souls,  to  whom  the  dream  of  extend- 
ing Christ's  sceptre  over  Asiatic  races  was 
a  haunting  vision  of  delight,  in  pursuit  of 
which  death  was  encountered  with  rapture. 
Yet  —  alas !  —  military  and  commercial  con- 
quests were  not  alien  to  these  dreamers,  and 
brought  down  upon  them  the  fury  of  the 
patient  East.  Japan  exacted  terrible  repris- 
als in  the  sixteenth  century,  trampling  the 
Cross  underfoot  and  exterminating  its  ad- 
vocates.     Nor   have   three  hundred   years 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  259 

sufficed  to  allay,  in  the  mind  of  the  East, 
distrust  of  Christian  approaches.  The  Pro- 
testant Reformation  in  Europe  was  unaccom- 
panied by  any  immediate  reaction  toward 
the  purpose  of  Christ  for  the  Christianizing 
of  the  world.  Institutional  and  contro- 
versial interests  at  home  consumed  the  time 
and  absorbed  the  attention  of  religionists. 
From  the  Moravians  of  Southern  Eu- 
rope emerged  the  first  manifestations  of 
missionary  devotion  pointing  to  the  reap- 
pearance of  the  world-sympathy  of  Christ. 
Through  the  Moravians  the  missionary  spirit 
touched  Denmark,  Saxony,  and  (dissemi- 
nated through  Northern  Germany  and  Hol- 
land) England.  It  appeared  in  England 
simultaneously  with  the  dawn  of  Wesleyan- 
ism,  and,  to  some  extent,  in  consequence 
of  that  revival.  By  reason  of  the  spiritual 
reaction  of  Wesleyanism  upon  the  Church 
of  England,  a  divine  solicitude  (stoutly  op- 
posed by  some  power  of  the  Establishment 
as  well  as  by  commercial  conservatism) 
spread  through  many  cultured  and  brilliant 
minds.  In  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  in 
England,  Christian  men  were  asking  them- 


260      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

selves :  Did  not  our  Lord  and  Master  thus 
and  thus  declare  regarding  the  nations  that 
lie  out  on  that  far  eastern  line,  where  brood 
the  clouds  of  pantheism  and  polytheism? 
The  spirit  of  Christ's  world-sympathy  began 
to  return.  Its  advent  in  an  atmosphere 
charged  with  ecclesiastical  and  theological 
intensity,  not  unmixed  with  ignorance  of 
Oriental  thought,  was  marked  by  character- 
istic elements  of  feeling.  Philanthropic  pity 
for  vaguely  apprehended  suffering,  and  the 
supposition  that  the  Christian  gospel  is  the 
forerunner  of  improved  physical  and  moral 
conditions,  were  blended  with  dogmatic  in- 
tensity of  definition  regarding  the  non- 
Christian  world.  The  dominant  theology 
feared  not  to  carry  to  a  conclusion  its  terrific 
inquiry  into  the  eternal  doom  of  the  non- 
Christianized  world.  The  dynamic  of  that 
aggressive  theology  was,  without  doubt, 
tremendous.  It  clothed  with  tragic  realism 
each  attempt  to  snatch  as  brands  from  the 
burning  the  members  of  Oriental  races. 
The  later  theological  evolution,  abounding 
in  so-called  "reconstruction,"  has  almost 
totally  withdrawn  the  accent  from  this 
point.     It  may  be  questioned  whether  the 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  261 

relative  elimination  of  the  former  tragic 
interest  in  the  destiny  of  non- Christian 
races  has  not  been  accompanied  with  grave 
loss  of  momentum  in  certain  large  regions 
of  Christian  thought  and  effort.  As  time  has 
gone  on,  other  important  changes  have  oc- 
curred in  the  elements  forming  the  con- 
temporary motive  of  Christian  missions. 
The  modern  re-discovery,  and  immediate 
ethical  application,  of  the  historic  realism 
of  Jesus  Christ,  has  augmented  immensely 
the  force  of  the  motive.  The  appeals  to 
obedience,  to  loyalty,  to  courage  in  fulfill- 
ment of  Christ's  actual  command  to  Chris- 
tianize the  world,  have  formed  strong  sub- 
sidiary grounds  on  which  to  summon  the 
chivalry  and  devotion  of  culture,  in  the  pre- 
sent age,  to  the  ethical  and  religious  ser- 
vice of  Asiatic  and  African  races.  The 
striking  words  of  Bishop  Heber  represent 
the  nature  of  the  appeal  or  challenge 
founded  on  Christ's  work  for,  and  among, 
men:  — 

"The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  war, 
A  kingly  crown  to  gain  ; 
His  blood-red  banner  streams  afar: 
Who  follows  in  His  train  ? " 


262      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

Together  with  this  revived  sense  of  the 
actual  historicity  of  Jesus  Christ,  other 
modern  influences  have  enriched  and  en- 
larged the  motive  of  Christian  missions. 
One  of  these  influences  is  the  growth  of 
humanism.  This  may  be  described,  in  gen- 
eral, as  the  outcome  of  a  richer  and  more 
mature  culture,  which  has  eventuated  in 
the  civilization  of  leading  Western  nations. 
It  may  be  affirmed,  more  particularly,  of  the 
English-speaking  group,  wherein  has  oc- 
curred in  the  last  half-century  prodigious 
advance  in  education,  with  its  normal  accom- 
paniment, a  silent  and  extensive  growth  of 
democracy.  The  power  of  certain  old  fic- 
tions of  authority  has  been  challenged; 
the  bases  of  authority  in  matters  of  faith 
and  in  matters  of  social  relationship  and 
duty  have  been  broadened  and  deepened, 
becoming  increasingly  subjective  and  ra- 
tional. This  has  involved  the  relative 
decline  of  extravagant  animosities  and  pre- 
judices between  nations,  the  growing  sense 
of  race  unity,  the  purging  of  social  ideals, 
the  elevation  of  social  ethics.  The  situa- 
tion remains  unsatisfactory  at  many  points, 
but  there  is  reason  for  hearty  thankfulness. 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  263 

The  primitive  question,  "Am  I  my  brother's 
keeper  ? "  returns  with  fresh  force  and  new 
meaning.  The  content  of  the  idea  of  bro- 
therhood augments,  and  extends  into  the 
realm  of  the  spirit.  A  conception  of  the 
nature  of  religion,  undreamed  of  in  the  age 
of  Cromwell,  has  grown  from  the  scientific 
study  of  nations  and  their  monuments. 
The  soul-action  of  remote  races  is  becoming 
intelligible.  The  science  of  religion  grows 
from  the  once  unconsidered  human  mass, 
like  the  figure  of  an  angel  from  the  un- 
chiseled  block.  The  wings  are  seen  where 
once  were  noted  only  fangs  and  claws. 
We  are  beginning  to  reverence  alien  and 
repellent  faiths,  as  marks  of  divine  poten- 
tiality awaiting  liberation  and  self-know- 
ledge. In  the  meantime  we  are  learning 
to  apprehend  larger  meanings  in  the  In- 
carnation of  Christ;  meanings  that  involve 
the  race,  taking  it  up  into  the  thought  and 
purpose  of  God,  investing  it  with  value  and 
sanctity,  sealing  it  with  the  mark  of  high 
destiny. 

The  growth  of  humanism  has  been  con- 
temporary with  our  increased  knowledge  of 
the  East,  and  with  portentous  changes  in 


264      CHRIST   AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

the  political  and  religious  conditions  of  Asia. 
It  is  important  to  consider  the  remarkable 
changes  that  have  occurred  in  the  state  of 
our  knowledge  of  the  East,  and  in  our  in- 
voluntary attitude  toward  the  East  resulting 
from  that  altered  state  of  knowledge.  Limi- 
tation and  error  characterized  the  situation 
one  hundred  years  ago.  It  could  not  be 
otherwise  in  view  of  the  very  limited  facili- 
ties then  available  for  the  accumulation  of 
accurate  knowledge.  Geographical  and  his- 
torical knowledge  of  Asia,  classified  and 
confirmed,  now  is  abundant.  The  philo- 
sophical study  of  Eastern  religions  has  at- 
tained, there  is  reason  to  suppose,  relatively 
correct  insight  into  the  fundamentals  of 
Oriental  thinking.  Means  of  travel  to  and 
in  the  East  have  improved  greatly.  Con- 
tinuous interchange  of  communication  is 
maintained.  An  immense  and  trustworthy 
literature  is  in  existence,  touching  all  aspects 
of  Eastern  life.  A  remarkable  Europeaniza- 
tion  of  large  portions  of  the  East  has  oc- 
curred; partly  through  the  instrumentality 
of  governments,  partly  through  the  direct 
and  indirect  influence  of  Christian  mis- 
sions long  since  established.     The  East  has 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  265 

gained  very  widespread  theoretical  ac- 
quaintance with  the  literature,  institutions, 
and  representatives  of  Western  Christianity. 
In  addition  to  this  knowledge  by  hearsay, 
the  East  now  possesses  at  many  points  an 
indigenous  Christianity  of  much  vitality  and 
self-possession,  flourishing  without  Occi- 
dental assistance.  The  effect  of  these  con- 
siderations is  to  establish  certain  interest- 
ing conclusions,  which  are  not  arbitrarily 
formed  but  develop  naturally  from  existing 
conditions. 

These  conclusions  bear  upon  the  psycho- 
logical attitude  of  those  addressing  them- 
selves to  the  work  of  Christian  missions  in 
the  modern  world.  They  bear  equally  upon 
the  nature  and  implications  of  the  work 
itself. 

It  is  profitable  to  reflect  upon  the  change 
in  psychological  attitude  necessarily  tak- 
ing place  in  those  who  address  themselves 
to  the  work  of  Christian  missions  in  the 
twentieth  century.  It  corresponds  with  the 
changes  occurring  in  the  more  advanced 
Asiatic  nations.  One  hundred  years  ago 
the  relative  absence  of  correct  knowledge 
concerning  the   East   and  the   absence   of 


266      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

testimony  from  predecessors  gave  to  pro- 
spective missionary  life  the  aspect  of  a  vague 
and  threatening  experience;  a  leap  of  faith 
in  the  dark.  Time  has  dispelled  in  great 
measure  this  cloud  of  obscurity.  In  "Les 
Miserables"  occurs  a  striking  passage  on  the 
inherent  tendency  of  that  which  is  indistinct 
to  identify  itself  with  that  which  is  terrible. 
The  passage  is  found  in  connection  with  the 
memorable  barricade  in  the  Quartier  Saint- 
Denis.  "The  necessary  tactics  of  insur- 
rection are  to  drown  small  numbers  in  a  vast 
obscurity,  to  multiply  every  combatant  by 
the  possibilities  which  that  obscurity  con- 
tains." These  words  suggest  the  ominous 
and  formidable  aspect  of  the  East  as  re- 
garded a  century  ago  by  men  and  women 
who  from  the  remote  colleges  and  univer- 
sities of  New  England  resolved,  amidst  fear- 
ful searchings  of  heart,  to  plunge  into  the 
"vast  obscurity"  of  Asiatic  life,  and  to 
encounter  the  possibilities  which  that  ob- 
scurity contained.  They  appeared  to  them- 
selves and  to  their  friends  to  be  leaping  from 
the  solid  ground  of  regulated  and  safe- 
guarded existence  into  the  yawning  abyss. 
How  great  was  the  heroism  of  those  early 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  267 

missionaries?  Perhaps  no  sterner  trial  of 
nerve  is  possible  than  deliberate  advance 
into  the  unknown.  The  conditions  amidst 
which  the  modern  youth  advances  from  the 
American  university  to  Asiatic  missionary 
service  are  almost  completely  reversed. 
A  long  tradition  of  residential  service  in  the 
Far  East  is  at  the  disposal  of  the  new  can- 
didate for  service.  A  great  literature  about 
the  East  is  accessible;  including  extensive 
scientific  examination  of  the  phases  of 
Oriental  life.  There  has  taken  place  a 
general  Europeanization  of  the  East,  which 
has  not  only  given  the  Occident  its  own  his- 
torical tradition  in  the  Orient,  but  has  re- 
acted in  an  extraordinary  degree  upon  the 
East  itself.  In  illustration  of  this  may  be 
cited  the  extensive  and  admirable  use  of  the 
English  language  throughout  Indian  and 
Sinhalese  circles  of  culture.  Within  this 
general  Europeanization  of  Eastern  life 
there  exists  a  specific  and  most  interesting 
Europeanization,  in  the  form  of  missionary 
establishments;  many  of  them  already  ven- 
erable and  looked  upon  in  many  instances 
by  the  local  leaders,  even  of  the  non-Chris- 
tian community,  as  valuable  and  welcome 


268      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

accessions  to  the  general  good.  In  addition 
to  all  this,  there  has  come  to  be  through- 
out many  parts  of  the  East  a  firmly  rooted 
Christianity,  which  grows  independently  of 
European  effort  to  sustain  it;  which  is 
developing  after  the  characteristic  type  of 
Oriental  insight  and  experience,  and  which 
would  continue  so  to  develop  were  European 
influence  to  be  withdrawn.  This  indige- 
nous Christianity  of  the  East  takes  up  into 
itself  and  assimilates  eternal  elements  of 
truth  contained  in  the  ancient  faiths.  It  is 
likely,  for  example,  that  the  future  Chris- 
tianity of  Japan  will  retain  forever  that 
desirable  essence  of  reverence  for  the  past 
and  loyalty  to  the  departed  which  is  the 
useful  and  admirable  trust  enshrined  in 
ancestor- worship. 

These  new  elements  in  the  modern 
Asiatic  world  strikingly  modify  the  psycho- 
logical attitude  of  those  who,  at  the 
present  time,  approach  missionary  service 
with  adequate  intelligence.  The  old  sense 
of  uncertainty  and  remoteness  is  gone. 
The  entire  East,  once  a  vast  obscurity  whose 
terrors  were  multiplied  by  the  possibilities 
which  that  obscurity  contained,  is  brought 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  269 

within  the  modern  world.  In  many  parts 
of  the  East  the  sense  of  pioneering,  once  the 
sole  conception  of  those  entering  the  for- 
eign service  of  Christianity,  no  longer  is 
applicable.  This  is  now  exchanged  for  the 
sense  of  entering,  and  becoming  a  part  of, 
an  order  of  things  long  and  well  established. 
The  mind  contemplating  Asiatic  missionary 
service  in  the  twentieth  century  will  do  well 
to  move  away  from  the  primitive  idea  of 
being  solely  the  evangelist  of  an  unknown 
Saviour.  It  is  necessary  to  adjust  one's 
self  to  the  fact  that,  as  the  result  of  a  half 
century  of  Christian  missionaries  and  print- 
ing-presses in  China  and  Japan,  and  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  of  the  same  in  India  and 
Ceylon,  direct  and  indirect  acquaintance 
with  the  leading  Christian  ideas  is  now 
widespread.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  re- 
vert to  former  erroneous  beliefs  held  in  the 
West  touching  the  universal  ignorance  and 
barbarism  of  the  Orient.  These  figments 
of  an  age  of  ignorance  vanish  from  mod- 
ern educated  circles.  One  recalls  them  with 
the  same  antiquarian  interest  awakened  by 
grotesque  maps  of  the  East  drawn  by  the 
early  cartographers.     Every  well-informed 


270      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

Occidental  now  knows  that  one  looks  in 
the  East  for  the  same  variations  of  culture 
and  ignorance  that  one  finds  in  the  West. 
The  self-possession  of  Oriental  Christianity 
is  beginning  at  length  to  be  realized  by  some 
Western  Christians.  Resentment  of  eccle- 
siastical dictatorship  by  Oriental  Christian 
leaders  comes  as  timely  advice  to  Occi- 
dental churchmanship,  that  henceforth  the 
relation  of  missionaries  to  the  cultured 
classes  of  the  East  must  change  from  that 
of  control  to  that  of  cooperation.  It  will 
be  a  happy  augury  for  the  continuance  of 
close  relations  between  Christians  of  East 
and  West  if  the  young  men  and  women 
now  preparing  in  American  and  English 
colleges  for  Asiatic  service  can  be  delivered 
altogether  from  the  old  tradition  of  con- 
descending pity  toward  the  Oriental  world. 
In  place  thereof  let  them  entertain  the 
thought  of  cooperation  with  Eastern  Chris- 
tians; their  equals  in  intelligence  and  devo- 
tion, their  superiors  in  knowledge  of  local 
conditions  and  insight  into  local  modes  of 
procedure. 

All  that  I  have  just  said  with  regard  to 
changed  psychological  attitude  on  the  part 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  271 

of  those  preparing  intelligently  for  lives  of 
service  in  India  and  the  Far  East  leads 
naturally  to  matters  with  which  I  shall  close 
this  Lecture.  It  is  evident  that  new  im- 
plications and  larger  meanings  must  be 
connected,  henceforth,  with  Christian  mis- 
sions in  the  modern  world.  I  shall  speak 
of  three  of  those  larger  meanings  as  they 
relate  themselves  respectively  to  the  Chris- 
tian educator,  the  Christian  physician,  and 
the  Christian  minister,  in  the  East. 

The  Christian  educator  in  the  East  must, 
in  the  coming  time,  stand  for  the  larger 
meaning  and  function  of  education,  growing 
out  of  the  relation  of  modern  knowledge  to 
the  ancient  religions.  We  have  only  to  turn 
our  eyes  homeward  to  see  that  the  mod- 
ern history  of  religion  in  the  West  has  been 
a  series  of  readjustments  to  an  advancing 
standard  of  knowledge.  Many  attempts 
have  been  made  to  protect  religious  think- 
ing from  the  influence  of  scientific  discovery 
and  philosophical  rectification.  In  the  end 
these  attempts  have  been  unsuccessful. 
The  tide  of  knowledge  rises  above  all  bar- 
riers of  authority,  prejudice,  or  devotion. 
Truth  is  irresistible.     The  most  vital  lesson 


272      CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

learned  in  the  modern  world  is  that  the 
readjustment  of  religious  thinking  to  the 
growth  of  knowledge  means  the  safeguard- 
ing rather  than  the  destruction  of  pure  and 
living  faith.  The  Christian  educator  in 
the  East  will  grasp  the  fact  that  the  prob- 
lem of  the  higher  Oriental  thinking  to-day 
is  to  effect  a  reorganization  of  the  religious 
consciousness.  This  is  to  be  done,  not  by 
ignoring  nor  vilifying  the  old  religions,  but  by 
seeking  to  assimilate  with  the  distinctively 
Christian  elements  of  truth  whatsoever  in 
the  ancient  Aryan  heritage  of  religion  and 
philosophy  can  be  held  in  connection  with 
modern  knowledge  of  nature  and  personality. 
The  Christian  physician  in  the  East  must, 
in  the  coming  time,  stand  for  the  larger 
meaning  of  medical  work  as  an  offset  to  the 
philosophy  of  pessimism.  That  philosophy 
very  largely  grew  out  of  animistic  concep- 
tions of  nature.  It  attributed  disease  to  the 
revengeful  or  malignant  action  of  deities 
who  were  to  be  combated  by  necromantic 
charms  and  propitiatory  sacrifices.  The  in- 
capability of  these  methods  of  dealing  with 
disease  led  to  the  increase  of  misery,  which 
must,  of  course,  precipitate  ultimately  the 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  273 

conclusions  of  pessimism.  The  whole  the- 
ory of  the  scientific  treatment  of  diseases 
rests  on  quite  another  conception  of  the 
universe  and  of  law.  It  moves  toward 
optimistic  conclusions.  Nothing  is  more 
needed,  in  order  to  affect  the  ethical  and 
spiritual  reconstruction  of  Oriental  life, 
than  deliverance  from  a  pessimistic  view  of 
the  universe.  As  the  Christian  physician 
in  the  East  learns  to  use  his  position  of  van- 
tage not  only  for  immediate  ends  of  mercy 
to  individuals,  but  as  a  contemporary  force 
making  for  profound  philosophical  recon- 
struction, he  will  achieve  results  even  more 
magnificent  than  those  now  reached. 

The  Christian  minister  in  the  East  must, 
in  the  coming  time,  stand  for  the  larger 
meaning  of  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son 
of  God.  He  goes  as  an  ambassador  for 
Christ;  but,  more  and  more,  he  must  go  as 
an  ambassador  of  the  mysterious  and  uni- 
versal Incarnation  of  Christ  in  the  whole 
human  race.  He  must  take  the  position 
that,  as  yet,  Christ  has  been  but  partially 
interpreted  through  the  evolution  of  the 
Western  religious  consciousness.  He  must 
point  out  to  the  finest  minds  of  the  East  that 


274       CHRIST  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

there  are  gifts  and  qualities  in  the  Oriental 
religious  consciousness  which,  when  they 
will  fully  undertake  the  interpretation  of 
Christ,  of  Christian  Scripture,  and  of  Chris- 
tian experience,  may  open  deeper  depths  and 
more  splendid  vistas  of  soul-power  than 
the  West,  with  its  genius  for  institutions  and 
for  practical  ethics,  has  yet  discerned. 

It  is  not,  then,  wholly  as  the  giver,  but 
also  as  the  receiver,  that  the  West  is  to 
approach  the  East,  bearing  the  Gospel  of 
Christ.  She  is  not  to  say :  This  is  the  Gos- 
pel which  I  know  and  which  I  teach  you; 
but  rather:  Here  is  the  Gospel  which  I 
know  in  part,  according  to  the  gifts  and 
insight  of  the  West.  Share  it  with  me, 
O  Soul  of  the  Eastern  World;  help  me  to 
know  better,  through  you,  that  Gospel  and 
that  Christ! 

Gentlemen  of  the  University:  At  the  out- 
set of  this  course  of  Lectures  I  expressed  the 
hope  that  my  observations  on  the  Attitude 
of  Jesus  Christ  toward  Foreign  Races  and 
Religions  might  lead  some  of  the  most 
thoughtful  and  gifted  among  the  under- 
graduates to  perceive  the  breadth  and  dig- 
nity of  the  Christian  ministry  as  a  life-work 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  275 

and  to  choose  that  life-work  as  their  own. 
I  close  my  term  of  duty  here  with  an  ex- 
pression of  the  same  hope.  What  is  more 
worthy  of  a  man  of  liberal  culture,  in  the 
modern  world,  than  to  set  before  himself 
this  as  the  goal  of  earthly  ambition:  to  be 
an  interpreter,  and,  so  far  as  possible,  a 
representative  of  the  Spirit  and  attitude 
of  Jesus  Christ  toward  the  world  of  men? 
What  is  more  needed  to-day,  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  than  the  presence  in  every 
community  of  educated  interpreters  and 
representatives  of  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 
What  manner  of  life  may  prove  more  reward- 
ing, as  one  looks  back  on  it  all  in  those  quiet 
hours  of  remembrance  and  reflection  that 
shall  remain  when  our  working  years  are 
over  ? 


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